


connected

by dweams (nightinjae)



Series: Realistic Minecraft AUs [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Realistic Minecraft, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blood and Injury, Dave | Technoblade and Wilbur Soot are twins, Domestic Fluff, Dream is reckless, Fluff, George is confused, Good Friend Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Kinda, Light Angst, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Protective Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Sapnap is a ball of sunshine, Slow Burn, im making that a tag, lapslock, sighs they're dense okay, these boys worry a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27957971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightinjae/pseuds/dweams
Summary: "so you're saying, soulmates are a thing.""yes, and you'll start to feel them once you turn 18.""feel... what exactly?"she smiles at dream. "whenever they feel hurt or scared. you'll feel a pull in your gut, as if something is going wrong, together with the strong urge to protect."alternatively, dnf but you can feel your soulmate's fear or when they are hurt to the point that they cry out or can't take anymore(specific, because dream is reckless but he really doesn't want to keep worrying his soulmate by being a wuss.)
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs, Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs & Sapnap, Alexis | Quackity & Sapnap, Alexis | Quackity/Karl Jacobs/Sapnap, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Karl Jacobs & Sapnap, Karl Jacobs/Sapnap
Series: Realistic Minecraft AUs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064630
Comments: 37
Kudos: 617





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> first of all,
> 
> tw// blood, zombies, spiders, hints of anxiety, cursing
> 
> hello again!! this was a fic that i planned, scribbled the plot down in like 5 minutes thinking it's going to be short oneshot of like 2k words or something but . it became bigger than that so i might cut this story into three parts! additionally, i barely proofread my stuff so apologies for that :D
> 
> before we start, i also just want to clarify that i tried to write this so you can choose whether the relationships here are platonic or romantic, it doesn't really matter! i just really wanted to write protective!dream and worried!george hahaha
> 
> there will also be certain relationship that are hinted at but i didn't really emphasize on it. also !! this may feel a little bit dragged out but i really wanted to write bffs!dream and sapnap plus world building hence the whole first chapter but ! things will move a bit faster after !!

dream tests the strength of the branch with his foot, slightly applying pressure before letting out an exhale. he grins, counting down in his head before jumping from the same branch, hands above his head as he grips the branch above. he yelps when he hears the lower branch snap, falling to the dirt with a muffled thud. 

he stands up, a hand gripping the trunk of the tree as he pulls at the leaves and twigs blocking his view with another, letting them fall to the ground as well. he giggles to himself once he can finally peer through, the sight overlooking his entire village and the meadows that surround it. he can see the river the fishermen go to early in the morning to catch fish glistening under the sun, the path travelers first find when they stumble upon their village. he can see the vacant land that he and his friends go to whenever they want to play or spar, as well as the flowers and the orchard the women of the village tend to. 

"dream, get _down_ from there!" a voice yells at him from below, startling him and making him lose his footing on the tree branch. his heart drops to his stomach when he loses his grip on the trunk, his brain acting on autopilot and making him twist his body midair so he can catch himself on his hands. 

he safely gets down on the ground—well, as safe as that could've been—his hands only suffering a few small scratches that beaded out blood to the surface of his skin. he inspects them before another pair of hands, wrinklier and calloused, take them into their own. dream looks up to see the village elder grab a bottle of water from her pouch, popping the cork open and pouring it over his hands, wiping away the dirt and blood. dream winces but laughs afterwards. 

"grandma, don't scare me like that." 

"no, dream. _you_ shouldn't scare _me_ like that." 

"i wasn't gonna fall if you didn't startle me." dream takes his hands back once the elder was done cleaning them up, patting them on his pants. 

"that's what your father said the day before he fell off halfway from climbing the village tower and broke an arm." the elder chides, sitting down under the shade of the tree. 

"okay, see, dad was just being dumb there." 

"i'm telling him you said that when he comes home." 

dream laughs, sitting next to the elder. "he'll whoop my ass and then proceed to challenge me to do it so he could call me dumb when _i_ fall." 

"but knowing you, you would take it on anyway." 

"just to prove him wrong." he grins, leaning on the trunk of the tree. a breeze passes by them, as they look at the bustling crowds of the village. 

"i know you like being reckless, dream, but i must remind you to be careful. you don't want to worry your soulmate now, do you?" the elder speaks up again after a few minutes of silence, making dream sit up and face her. 

"soulmate?" 

"yes, soulmates. people you shared a part of you in each life you've had." the elder explains and dream hums, eyebrows furrowed in thought. she notices this and laughs, startling dream out his his mulling. 

"why are you laughing?" 

"you wore the same expression your father did when i told him about soulmates. that same confused yet thoughtful look, your foreheads creasing the same way." she explains, sighing. dream blinks, smiling a bit before shaking his head. 

"so you're saying, soulmates are a thing. right, grandma?" 

the elder looks at dream's wide eyes, a soft smile on her face. "yes. and you will start to feel them once you turn 18." 

"feel... what, exactly?" 

"whenever they feel hurt or scared. you will feel a pull in your gut, as if something is wrong, together with the strong urge to protect." she smiles, petting his hair as she continues to speak. "soulmates are people that hold a piece of you, a piece that is simply a reminder of a promise." 

dream sniffles, not quite understanding but he nods. "i turn 18 in a few. does that mean they'll feel whenever i'm hurt?" 

"that's correct. unless they haven't turned 18, themselves." 

"why is that, grandma?"

the village elder hums, looking across the field. "no one truly knows, but it seems that that's how the universe had done it. there's a lot of things we can't explain, but we know is true."

dream stares at the grass, deep in thought while his grandma continues to pet his hair, humming alongside the breeze that passes by. he hears a faint voice, increasingly getting louder until he can make out the word and the voice. 

"dream!" 

"sapnap?" he looks over his shoulder and sees his friend running over to him. 

"dream!" the younger boy beams at him when he reaches them, bowing to the elder afterwards. 

"good afternoon, grandma." sapnap says, smiling bigger when the elder ruffles his hair. 

"good afternoon, sapnap. how is your mother?" 

"she's doing good! she's back to helping dad out at the blacksmith." sapnap grins, the white bandana tied on his head flying with the breeze. dream stands up, patting his backside free of dirt before looking back at his friend. 

"what's up?" 

the sparkle in sapnap's eyes intensify, excitement bubbling underneath which makes dream curious. the younger grabs dream's arms, shaking him slightly when he says, "your mom's home!" 

dream's eyes widen, breath leaving his lungs as he mirrors sapnap's expression. "s-she—" 

"come on, let's go! she's over at the plaza talking with my dad, come on, come on!" sapnap starts pulling dream towards the village center before pausing and letting go of dream’s arm to bow to the elder. “we’ll be off now, grandma - uh, unless you would like to come with us?”

the boys look at the elder who waves her hand at them, smiling, "you two run along now, i'll have plenty of time to catch up with her. go on, dream. i know you miss her."

dream smiles, bowing his head slightly before allowing himself to pulled away by his best friend, looking over his shoulder before waving at the elder. "bye grandma! see you later!"

they run across the field, laughter erupting from dream's chest as he feels the wind whizzing past his face. they get to the village in record time, the villagers looking at them with scoldings at the tips of their tongues but they falter when they see that it's dream and sapnap. instead, they let fond smiles settle on their faces, letting them go for now.

there's a crowd that gathered in the plaza of the village and they weave through the bodies, muttering excuses. people eventually moved to give way for them, dream bursting through to the center and run up to hug his mother.

"ma! you're home!" he yells, burying his face against her shoulder. he feels the light rumble of laughter from her chest, a hand coming up to his hair and ruffling it.

"hello, dream." his mom says as he pulls away. they share a smile before dream goes back in for another hug, giggling as he tightens his arms around her for good measure. he finally pulls away after a while, his cheeks hurting after smiling for so long but he can't find it himself to stop.

his mom looks over his shoulder where sapnap was standing, waving at him. sapnap grins, giving a little wave back before continuing to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet. she looks back at dream. "you boys have grown so much since i last saw you."

"you're still as beautiful as the day you left, ma." dream replies, making his mother laugh loudly.

"alright, enough of your sappiness." she huffs before gesturing down at her feet where bags and sacks of stuff are gathered. "help me bring these to the house?"

dream nods, immediately moving to haul a few bundles over his shoulder, turning around and nodding his head towards the bags when sapnap looks back at him. his best friend rushes in too, grabbing a few bags under his own arms. dream's mother laughs again, gathering the remaining ones and they set off to their humble abode.

—

dream and sapnap tell her about the changes in the village during the 8 months she was gone, sharing their stories of small expeditions after pestering the lumberjacks to take them to the forest, collecting beetles, getting stung by bees, being startled by the huge spiders that resided in the caves. they also tell her about the wedding she missed between the lovely florist and the head fisherman, together with the mess that had occurred during the ceremony since they didn't notice the children running off to the river some time before.

dream tells her about his new knowledge about soulmates. this gets him a confused expression from sapnap and a fond one from his mother.

"what's a soulmate?" sapnap asks, gently lowering down the bags on the wooden floor of the house.

dream pats his hands on his pants after putting his own load down. he hums, looking at sapnap. "grandma told me about it. i don't really understand it that much but apparently they're people we've shared a part of us with across the lives we've lived. and that there's this weird connection between the two people where you can feel when they're scared or something. i don't know, grandma could just be rambling—"

"it's true." dream's mom pipes up, a hand on her hip as she smiles at her son. she takes a seat on the bench near the fireplace, gesturing the boys to come closer to her. they sit down in front of her with wide, curious eyes. "soulmates are real. your father and i are soulmates, and i remember how much he apologized to me when he found out it was me he was paired with because he always got in trouble."

"what..." dream trails off, eyes blinking and eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "how does it feel like?"

"remember that time your father broke his arm while i was away?" dream nods. "remember how i rushed back to the village worried as all hell when he was sitting at home with the cleric scolding him and pushing bottles at him? that's because i felt his pain. well—not really. it's more of like how your gut instinct tells you something bad is happening.

"soulmates are people that you protect, and they will protect you. it sounds cheesy, but it's true. you'll know what it is because it's stronger than your gut instinct. it might make you act on reflex, so be careful." she says, laughing a little bit when the boys shared confused expressions.

"what if you don't meet your soulmate?" sapnap asks and she shakes her head.

"you will. it's just a matter of when and where and what's happening. you can meet them when they're doing something dumb or when they're in grave danger and they need your help." she explains before yawning.

"you should get some rest, ma." dream says after a while but she shakes her head.

"i will, in a bit. first, i need to sort out the stuff i got. come along." she says, standing up and padding to the pile of loot on the floor. she sits down cross-legged in front of it, grabbing the bundle closest to her. pulling at the string that held it closed, the bundle reveals an assortment of objects that dream both has and hasn't seen before.

she pulls out slabs of meat wrapped carefully in leaves and string, the leaves stained with ink in letters. "what do the letters mean?"

"what animal it's from. some are from pigs, some rabbits, cow, and the occasional sheep. these are all fresh though, killed and wrapped just a day or two ago."

she stacks them up in their respective groups, giving some to sapnap to bring home later tonight. sapnap smiles brightly, thanking her.

she pulls out bundles of string out next, some leather rolled and tied up neatly, some rabbit feet wrapped in some of the excess leather. typical livestock products. she folds the bundle and moves on to the next one. 

"what's that?" dream asks, pointing at a glass jar of red, slimy balls.

his mom looks up at him, smiling mischievously before pulling the bottle out at shoving it at his face. "spider eyes." both boys makes a face before they all laugh. "most of these are for the cleric though. potions and all that."

she doesn't pull anything else out of the bag aside for some shimmering powder in a bottle and bright rocks. "glowstone. put it on your nightstands later tonight." she gives them both a big piece each.

the next bundle intrigued dream a lot. it holds an assortment of monster loot and ores, some he's seen his dad bring home before. his mom pulls out a couple of gold and iron ingots, leaving the rest in the bag. there are emeralds too, as well as some redstone.

"you're very organized, ma. teach me your ways." dream comments, making his mother giggle.

"you have to be organized, or some things might happen when you don't want it to."

she pulls out shiny black rocks next, some of them with a pulsing purple light glowing within its cracks. "crying obsidian, one of the villagers from a far town told me. don't know what it's for just yet, but it seemed interesting enough to keep."

she continues taking stuff out. she pulls out some bones which dream knew would be used to make bone meal and dye, some rotten flesh which would be fed to the wild wolves in the forest. then she pulls out these green gelatinous orbs that had an odd shimmer to it that dream had never actually seen before, only in books.

"ender pearls?" sapnap beats him to it and she nods. she takes four pearls out, giving dream and sapnap two each. they look at her with awe and confusion.

"w-wha—wait, m-mom, are you giving these to us?" dream stutters in disbelief.

"yeah. but, you can only use them once you're out adventuring. so keep them safe, alright?" she winks at them before continuing to sort the loot out. the two boys look at each other again, mouth wide open, eyes sparkling with excitement.

she states the names of the things as she takes them out. golden carrots, gunpowder, a couple books, lapis lazuli, bundles of paper with notes and recipes scribbled on them, arrows with the tips wrapped in wool, several potion bottles to dip said arrows, and a lot more stuff.

when dinner time came, his mother took some of the meat and vegetables she was able to gather to cook up some of dream's favorite foods. stew, steak, salads, breads, and even an apple pie. the two boys listened to the stories of her adventures with awe, laughing at some of the missteps she made and at her lighthearted rants about dream's father who constantly made her worry.

"but it's good to know he's there, you know? we had this agreement, him and i, that we'll sometimes let ourselves feel fear for a second just to let the other know we're alive. it's a way of communicating. no longer than 10 days without scaring the other or else we'll start assuming the worst." she chuckles fondly, staring into the candlelight in the middle of the table.

sapnap goes home that night with a bundle of gifts dream's mom gave him and his family, waving goodbye at dream with a promise to drop by again tomorrow and then thanking dream's mom profusely after. dream laughs at him, shaking his head before bidding him goodnight.

"so," she starts while he was cleaning the place up. he looks up, tilting his head slightly with confusion.

"yes?"

"it's your birthday in a few days, right?"

dream nods, still a bit confused. she smiles at him, going back to the pile of loot on the floor. she kneels down, moving bags and rearranging them so nothing breaks. after a while, she stands back up with a long rectangular object wrapped in thick layers of wool and leather, all tied together with a lot of string in her grasp. she hands it to dream, eyes glinting with pride and love.

"for you. open it." she says once dream takes into his hands. it's heavy, dream notes, as he puts it down on the table to undo the knots. moments later, all the string has been removed and dream pulls back the leather and wool in anticipation.

he gasps the moment he sees what it was, eyes wide in disbelief and looking back and forth between it and his mom. under the wraps is a brand new sword, the blade made of hard blue diamond, reflecting the light of the candlelight on its surface. the hilt is intricately made with quality white iron, gilded with the same blue diamond of the blade. the pommel is smooth and circular, a smiley face engraved onto the metal.

"happy birthday, dream." she says after a while, startling a bit when her son surges into her arms for a hug. she feels him trembling before hearing a quiet sniff, surprising her even more. she bring a hand up to pat his head, running her fingers through his hair. "my favorite little adventurer is all grown up to explore the world himself."

"ma—" dream chokes out, hugging her tighter. she smiles and hugs back just as tight. 

later, dream places the sword under his bed, wrapped once more into a neat package. he positions the glowstone on his table, the rock emitting off a soft yellow light almost akin to a gentle star that landed in his room. he falls asleep with a heart so full and a chest so light. 

—

"dream! happy birthday! let's spar!"

dream looks up from where he was writing down the letter to the village elder regarding his coming of age, asking formal permission to become an adventurer of the village. the entire village already knew dream is going to be one, but it's for the sake of documentary, he guesses. he places the quill back into the bottle of ink, standing up and grabbing the wooden sword leaning against the wall.

he pulls the door open to his friends - sapnap, techno, wilbur, and sam - all holding wooden swords similar to his. they all look at him with huge grins, sapnap pulling his arm excitedly and they immediately start to walk towards the field they spar in.

sapnap gives him a parcel once they get there, a little birthday gift he should open when he gets home later, the younger says. wilbur ruffles his hair, apologizing for not having a gift right now and dream waves his hands frantically, telling him he doesn't need to give anything. sam says something about a contraption he left at home, still unfinished, he explains. techno just grins at him, raising his sword.

"spar with me, then maybe i'll give you your birthday gift." dream agrees, the same cocky grin on his face.

"bring it on, blade." he retorts.

they decide on the pairs and the rounds, coming up with a system that would match up each one of their strengths and weaknesses, and be efficient in learning and teaching. 

dream watches as sam beats wilbur in a spar, sitting beside sapnap and techno, talking about techniques and and debating about missteps and should've beens. a few more rounds come and go, until dream stands before technoblade.

—

"george!" 

george looks up from the cloth he was washing at the riverside, eyes finding his friend waving at him. he sets the cloth aside on the flat rock, drying his hands on his pants as bad approaches him. "hey, bad." 

"hi." the older smiles. "your dad's looking for you, said something about deliveries?" 

george immediately stands up, eyes widening when he realizes he lost track of time. "oh crap—bad! sorry, please take care of the cloths and if you can, please just leave it at my room, i'll be back, i swear just–" 

"go, george! don't worry, i got you." bad laughs, waving him off as he runs back to the village center. he weaves through the crowd, apologizing whenever he bumps into them, until he gets to the cleric's brewery where his dad was waiting. 

his dad is already looking at him with an eyebrow raised, arms crossed against his chest when he bursts through the door. an apologetic smile finds its way onto george's lips, feet moving until he reaches the counter. 

"hey, dad." 

"did you forget again?" his dad says, turning around to place some bottles and fruits onto a wicker basket. 

george chuckles. "yeah, sorry. got too caught up in my thoughts." he replies, taking the basket once his dad hands it over to him. 

"alright, so the golden carrots goes to the house near the forest, where your friend karl lives, the strength potions for the lumberjacks—probably resting at the campsite at the edge of the village so you can take it to them last. the health potion is for the sick fella over at the bakery. oh, and one more thing, pick up some sugar from the market and the spider eyes i asked the blacksmith to keep for me." his dad lists out, already moving around to start on a fresh batch of potion bases while george tries to memorize and figure out the most efficient route for him. he peers into the basket and notices some glistering melons at the side. he tilts his head in confusion. 

"what about these melons, pa?" 

his dad looks over to him before smiling. "for you. you said you wanted to practice your brewing, yeah? use the stand at home, i left some awkward potions in the cupboard. everything else you need should be there too." 

george's face lights up immediately and a giddy feeling erupts in his chest, an excited giggle escapes his lips. "thanks, dad! you're the best. i'll be off now!" he says, immediately taking off and running through the door. 

"be careful, george!" he barely hears his father say. 

he walks down the gravel road, looking up at the bright sky as he traces the route he established in his head. he turns a right towards the bakery, greeting the villagers who wave at him and asks about the brewery. he answers some villagers, taking note of some of the inquiries they had to relay to his dad before he finally reaches his first stop - the bakery.

he knocks on the wooden door, waiting for the baker to open up and let him in. he takes the healing potion out of the basket, a shimmering pink liquid in a glass bottle as the door opens.

"oh, hello george. how can i help you today?"

"potion delivery." he smiles. "how's your daughter?"

"niki's doing alright, i suppose. she's been struggling, but she said it's manageable. i don't believe it though. come in while i grab the emeralds. you can put it down on the table over there." the baker explains, ducking under the counter to grab 3 pieces of emeralds. george gently places the bottle down where he was told, humming to himself.

"here you go. thank you, george. hope you and your father are well!"

"thank you! i hope niki gets better too!" he waves goodbye, stepping out of the building and immediately goes back to walking on the gravel. he reaches the next destination - karl's house - earlier than he expected. he knocks on the door and expects to hear karl's loud voice from inside but instead he is met with silence.

"karl?" he calls out. 

"backyard!" he hears a faint voice answer him and he walks around the house, squeezing through the alleyway between the walls of the houses.

"karl? what are you doing out here?"

the said boy raises his head up, his familiar smile pulling at his lips. "hey george. could ask you the same thing."

"deliveries. you ordered golden carrots?"

karl stands up, eyes lighting up at the mention of the produce. "yes! yes, i did. hold on, let me just—" he picks up the half-made wooden sword from the ground, carefully letting it rest against the wall of his house. "come in." karl says, holding the heavy wooden back door open for george.

"making another sword?"

"yeah, mine broke when alex and i sparred yesterday afternoon. splintered and everything. it was so scary." karl laughs, opening the chest at the foot of his bed to take out his payment. he walks up to george and hands it over, taking the carrots gently in return.

"what do you need the carrots for?"

"i owed alex some after the spar. dunno what he's gonna do with it, probably just for his weird concoctions or something." karl shrugs, a smile on his face.

"hopefully he doesn't try to roast it or something." george jokes as karl grabs the backdoor open again.

"knowing him, i wouldn't be surprised if he tried."

they walk back outside to the backyard, a goodbye at the tip of george's tongue when his stomach lurches, eyes widening in fear. his blood runs cold, making him freeze in his steps.

"george?" karl asks when he notices george's face pale. the other boy looks at him slowly, breathing shallow. 

"s-something's wrong. i don't—karl, can you hold this for me? i'll be right back, i swear, i just—i have a really bad feeling about something, i don't know what but—"

"deep breaths, george." karl says, taking the basket from george. "are you okay? what's happening?"

"i don't know—just, something's wrong, i'm gonna go check it out first, okay? i'll be right back, i promise." george says and takes off before karl could even say anything.

—

dream's back is pressed against the grass and pebbles on the ground, his head swimming and vision blurry. he can hear his friends fuss around him, voices muffled by the ringing in his ears as he groans, hand coming up to clutch at his head. he vaguely recognizes wilbur's voice telling sam to get some ice and maybe ask the cleric to help them out.

it's painful, dream notes to himself, and it really did take him by surprise. he made a miscalculation earlier during the spar, wanting to try a new attack he learned from his mother the other day. his eyes were trying to look for a weak spot, all his focus going into locating it and moving his feet. he found one and was delighted, but he didn't see techno's sword coming from his right. technoblade himself was surprised since it was such an obvious attack, putting a considerable amount of force into it since he thought dream would easily block it. instead, he had accidentally given dream a concussion.

"why didn't you _block,_ dream!" he hears techno yell, a surprising amount of emotion in his voice considering how monotone his friend usually is. dream wants to chuckle, but every move makes his head hurt more than the last.

"miscalculation." he says instead, his voice slurring. _that's a concussion alright_ , dream thinks.

"don't fall asleep on us yet, dude." sapnap says, crouching next to dream and using his fingers to gently pull dream's eyes open to which he groans at. "will, can you gently put his head on your lap?"

wilbur moves to kneel just before dream, carefully lifting dream's head off the ground and onto his lap. the movement makes dream a little dizzy and nauseous but he doesn't protest. sam comes back a few moments later, the cleric running with him.

"dream?" the cleric asks, kneeling next to him. he hears bottles clink against each other, feeling sapnap's hand move away from his face. "dream, what are you feeling?"

it takes him a few seconds to reply, eyes drifting to a close. "dizzy."

something cold touches his temple and he hisses at the suddenness of the temperature. wilbur holds his head steady as the cleric checks for more symptoms before sighing. he takes a bottle from his bag, gesturing for wilbur to slowly push dream up to a sitting position. "drink, dream." she says, a cork popping open before he feels the cool glass against his lips.

he opens his mouth and let the potion flow into his mouth, the sweet and sour fizzy taste of a regeneration potion on his tongue. he drinks as much as he can before the bottle is taken from him. wilbur slowly pulls him back down to lie on his lap.

"dream's probably going to be out of it for a while so i'll tell you boys what to do instead. first and foremost, he can't go out and be reckless for at least 2 days. don't let him get out of bed unattended. if his head still aches by tomorrow or if he's still sluggish and unbalanced, give him half a bottle of the strength potion and let him sleep. he should be fine after that. don't let him eat too heavy if he feels nauseous. and lastly, if you can, please stay with him until he recovers."

"gotcha." sapnap replies and huffs, looking down at dream. technoblade clicks his tongue and looks at him.

"we should carry him home." he says, and sapnap nods. he looks at dream who can barely see him with his eyes barely open. "you, go to sleep." dream obliges and immediately falls asleep.

—

"dad!" george bursts through the brewery doors once more, looking disheveled and in distress as his eyes flit around the place before landing his dad who yelps at his entrance. a bottle hits the floor, shattering and startling both of them. 

"jesus, george! don't scare me like that!" his dad says, eyes wide at his son, a lengthy scolding on his tongue. he falters when he sees george genuinely worried and terrified though, the latter taking quick strides towards the counter.

"are you okay, dad? are you hurt? did anything bad happen?" george's frantic voice shakes as he reaches over the counter, hands on his dad's shoulders as he tries to inspect his dad for any injuries with his eyes. 

"the only bad thing that happened was this freshly brewed bottle of night vision shattering and spilling on the floor." his dad huffs before his features soften. he takes george's hands off of him, holding them in his own before the younger pulls away. "what's wrong, george? what happened?"

his son slumps over the counter, forehead meeting the hard polished wood as he deflates, the adrenaline leaving him. it takes him a few moments to reply, but his dad waits patiently.

"felt like something really bad happened. i was so _scared."_ he says, voice quiet and muffled. his dad doesn't say anything back so george raises his head to see his dad pull a chair to sit on.

"sit down, george." he says and george obliges.

"what did you feel?"

"i...i can't really explain it but, it felt like someone pushed me off a really high cliff but held onto my arm last second. my stomach dropped and stuff." he tries, hands gesturing as he talks. his dad chuckles which makes him confused. "why are you laughing, dad?"

"it means your soulmate's finally 18 and they probably just got hurt or something. let's hope it's nothing bad."

"what do you mean _soulmate?_ what is that?"

his dad reaches over to ruffle his hair before standing up again. "finish your deliveries first. i'll tell you later." he walks over the mess on the floor and into the back room.

—

"hey, george. you good?" karl greets him as he opened the door, stepping aside to let george in.

"yeah." karl hands him the basket, mumbling a little thanks. the younger boy smiles at him. "hey karl?"

"what's up?"

"do you know what a soulmate is?" george asks tentatively, unsure whether he should've asked that or not.

"a soulmate? heck yeah, dude. why— _oh_. don't tell me the reason you left was because you felt something?"

"what? what's the connection?" george makes a face.

"you don't know?" karl asks, genuinely surprised. george shakes his head. "whenever your soulmate gets hurt or gets scared, you'll feel it."

"oh." george furrows his eyebrows as his gaze drops to the floor. "well, my soulmate's an idiot, i guess." he laughs.

"that's so mean, dude." karl giggles with him. george shrugs, smiling.

"i gotta go now, thanks for holding onto the basket for me. see ya!" he bids goodbye, waving at karl when he steps onto the gravel path once more, on his way to the edge of the village.

—

"you think my soulmate felt that?" dream asks when he finally woke up. sapnap raises an eyebrow at him, shrugging.

"probably. you _are_ 18 now so, unless they aren't 18 themselves, they most likely did." the younger replies, munching on the cookies the village elder left for them earlier. dream groans, throwing an arm over his eyes and sapnap rolls his eyes at him. "really dude?"

"what?" dream replies, confused and slightly annoyed.

"you get a concussion, went and passed out on the gang and the first thing you worry about is your _soulmate_? _"_ sapnap tuts. dream moves to sit up but sapnap is immediately up from his seat, pushing down on dream's chest. "you stay down, big man. you just woke up."

"is it so bad that i don't want them to worry when i don't know who they are or where they are just yet?" dreams huffs, staring at the ceiling.

"no, but the fact that you didn't even ask how long you were out concerns me." sapnap raises an eyebrow at him, sitting back down.

dream looks at him before looking at the window. it was already dark, the glowstone on his desk lighting the room up brighter than the torches on the wall. he looks back at the younger, expression sheepish. "how long?" 

"a day and a half." sapnap replies and dream pales.

" _what_?"

"yeah, a day and a half. techno came in here yesterday and was threatening your unconscious body. and i quote ' _if you fucking die on your birthday, i'll punt you to the ground when we meet again_ '."

"no way. that's just a big fat lie, you made it obvious." dream says and his friend chuckles.

"okay, so techno didn't say that, but you were out for quite a while. at least 13 hours?"

dream hums, before sighing. "sapnap."

"what?"

"i'm hungry."

—

george turns in his bed, thinking back to the conversation about soulmates he had with his dad during dinner time earlier. he looks out the window, watching as little insects flock to the lanterns outside.

" _soulmates are people you_ know _you can depend on. why? because_ you _were the one who trusted them in your past life_." _his father says, cutting into his food. george opens his mouth to ask something but his father raises a hand to stop him_.

" _i know what you're going to say. 'but past me and present me aren't the same person! i don't even remember what happened in my previous life. how am i supposed to know who this person is_?"

_george nods, blinking. his father laughs._

" _i know it's unbelievable, but you'll know when you meet them. and i'm telling you, you will_."

george sighs. he sits up, getting out of bed quietly as to not wake his father up. he pads over to where his shoes lie, shoving his feet in them and leaving the house. the cold night wind breezes past him, the village quiet aside from the grunts of the iron golem from a far and the remaining villagers working overnight. one of them spots george walking around, waving at him.

"can't sleep?" they call out. george shakes his head.

he walks to the river, the moon reflected onto the calm current of the water. he sits down by the bank, looking down the clear water. a fish swims past as he hums under his breath, making george smile.

a rustle startles george out of his thoughts. he looks to the side, wondering if another chicken got loose and it's finally found its way back home. he stands up, trying to peer through the leaves. the noise continues, coming closer and closer. george waits, still thinking it was an animal of some sort.

instead, a zombie materializes in front of him, groaning and reeking of rotten flesh. george's eyes widen, face paling and his stomach drops to the ground in fear. the zombie comes closer, spots him and drags its body to george. finally breaking out of his trance, george moves, almost tripping, and runs back to the village, fear and adrenaline running in his veins. he stops midway to the village though, looking back to see the zombie still chasing after him.

 _i can't lead it back to the village_. he thinks. _the villagers can't fend for themselves and everyone else is asleep. why is there a zombie this close to the village_? he looks around, hoping to see anything he could use as a weapon to fend the monster off. an idea flashes in his head just as the zombie's groan gets louder. the monster lunges at him, making him yelp and jump back. cursing underneath his breath, he runs to the right of the village, where one of the iron golems are stationed.

—

dream clutches at his chest, breath heaving as sapnap tries to get him some water. his grasp on the table tightens when the feeling still doesn't stop, his knuckles turning white from it.

"breathe, dude. hey, come on, drink." sapnap grabs his hand from the table, guiding the bottle up to his lips and letting him drink the water. dream gasps afterwards, looking around and trying to focus. sapnap moves into his vision. "what's wrong, dream?" 

"i...is this what it's like if your soulmate is in danger?" 

"what?" 

dream stands up and accidentally slams his hands on the table to catch himself, his head hanging low as he gasps, the tug in his gut momentarily intensifying and the younger immediately fusses over him. "this is so fucking weird but i'm also very worried. it's still going, t-the fear, i mean. it's not going away, what—are they _okay_?" 

"dream—" 

dream collapses back onto his chair when the moment passes, holding his head in his hands. he tries to catch his breath, trying calming his heart down but it barely gives him any relief. sapnap rubs a hand down his back, confused and unsure how to help his friend.

thankfully, the feeling starts to subside and dream can finally breathe. he sighs, looking outside the window in front of him.

"you good?" sapnap asks, sitting back down beside him. dream nods. "what are you thinking?"

"that felt like i was having a heart attack." dream gently places his head down on the table, feeling the cool surface of the wood on his cheek. "my head hurts again."

"you need a potion?"

dream shakes his head, turning it to look up at sapnap. the younger smiles at him, patting his head. "you think they're okay?" dream asks.

"i think you can answer that better than me."

dream hums, closing his eyes. "i think they are. i _hope_ they are."

—

george tries to catch his breath once the zombie has been dealt with by the golem. the golem looks at him, beady red eyes trained on him before it produces a flower in its hand, bending down slightly to offer it to george. 

george smiles, taking the flower and patting the golem gently. "thank you."

the golem blinks, turning around to walk back to its station. george looks down at the flower, smiling before something dawns on him. he slaps his forehead with the hand not holding the flower, huffing and looking up at the night sky.

"sorry!" he says, blinking at the stars. "wherever you are! i'm sorry." he smiles and laughs a little bit, shaking his head and looking back the flower.

"i'm safe." he whispers, knowing that whoever his soulmate was couldn't hear him but he still hopes that the calmness in his heart could reach them. he sighs, before turning around and running back to the village, keeping the flower safe from the winds. the villagers he saw earlier we're already wrapping up, some already back at home asleep. they wave at him again, scolding him lightly to go to bed and he laughs, wishing them a good night as he walked back home.

once he was back in his room, he takes an empty bottle sitting on his desk, walks to the kitchen and takes a bit of water from the cauldron to keep the flower fresh in the bottle. he places it on the windowsill, the petals illuminated by the moonlight as he settles back in bed, eyes immediately drifting to a close.


	2. ii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "it's really happening, huh."
> 
> dream cranes his neck from where he lying down to look at sapnap before looking back up at the sky. "yeah."
> 
> "it doesn't feel like it. you think we're ready?"
> 
> "we've always been ready, sap. it's just the matter of putting things in action."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * _blinks_ * i dont know how this happened but hey!
> 
> tw // zombies, blood, spiders, cursing, kinda graphic depictions of preparing an animal
> 
> idk how i hit 7.8k words but anyway, if it feels dragged out im sorry !! things are starting to move i swear.
> 
> also !! quackity's character is introduced in this chapter and i want to point out that any kind of relationship he has in this fic is **_PURELY PLATONIC_** to respect his wishes of not being shipped with his friends.
> 
> and another heads up !! lots of pov switches !! hope it doesnt get confusing for you guys hehe
> 
> that's all, i hope you guys enjoy!

"sapnap! happy birthday, big man." dream yells, entering his best friend's house. sapnap's head shoots up to look at dream, a bright smile on his face.

"dream! i'm 18!" sapnap runs to him, jumping and clinging onto the older, who catches and carries him. they laugh a bit before dream puts sapnap down, hearing their others friends running up the path.

"sap!"

"sappy nappy!"

"sapnap."

"you guys! hey!" sapnap greets back, running to them and giving them all hugs — even techno, who seemed reluctant to accept the gesture, patted his back to reciprocate. dream smiles.

"happy birthday, dude." sam says, grabbing sapnap's shoulder and sighing. dream walks up to them, arms crossed and an easy smile on his face. sam looks at him, giving sapnap's shoulder a squeeze as he does. "guess this is where it all begins, huh?"

"when do you guys plan to do it?" wilbur asks and sapnap smiles.

"at dawn before the full moon." sapnap replies, eyes glinting with excitement and they all nod.

it's been almost a year or so since dream himself turned 18 and the two of them have been waiting for this day, excited and giddy. they have planned everything thoroughly, trained nearly everyday, and studied about everything they could.

they are going to become _adventurers_ , the pair of them. and the story of their adventures is finally about to begin.

techno clears his throat, grabbing something from his bag. he walks forward to sapnap and dream with two small bundles. "for you both. to aid your adventures. think of it as a lucky charm from me." he smiles, which makes sapnap gasp and give the former another hug.

dream pulls the string to open the bundle and his eyes widen at the contents. _golden apples_. "where did you get these?"

"you think you're the only one going on adventures?" techno raises an eyebrow. "truthfully, someone from outside the village got them for me but that doesn't matter."

"techno, what the hell dude! this is so cool, thank you!" sapnap says, eyeing the apples in his hands. "seriously, you are so cool, man."

techno smiles again. "stay safe out there. maybe one day, when all three of us are out adventuring at the same time, our paths will cross in the middle once more."

"what do you mean?"

the group goes quiet until techno sighs, wilbur frowning beside him. "i plan to leave the village for good soon. once wilbur decides, i mean. he hasn't chosen between whether or not he'll come with, but my plan is set." he looks at wilbur. "he promised he'll tell me, he just needs time."

"techno..." dream's face falls but techno waves it away.

"if you guys remain here, don't worry. i'll make sure to keep you guys updated with letters. don't expect them to be consistent, though. and maybe i'll come back to visit." he smiles easily and everyone else does their best to return it.

sam clears his throat this time, walking up to dream and sapnap with a small smile. he pulls his gifts out of his bag — iron picks, compasses, and a small bag of emeralds.

"sam, this is a lot. i—we can't—" sapnap stutters but sam laughs at him.

"no, it's fine. please, take it." he smiles. "i want to give you enough to ensure your safety. you're both extremely talented in the arts of fighting and survival but you're both incredibly reckless too. i wanted to give you both something to at least help you guys out."

"sam..." dream starts but sapnap puts the things down gently before tackling their friend in a hug.

"anything for our youngest boys." sam chuckles, patting sapnap's back. "there there."

sapnap pulls back and sighs. stepping back, he notices wilbur walk up to them with a small smile on his face.

"my gift was too big for me to carry around, so you'll have to get them yourselves. it's at the blacksmith's, sapnap, just ask your dad for it, yeah?" he says before opening his arms for sapnap. the latter sniffs, holding back tears as he hugs wilbur.

"thank you, wil, techno, sam. you guys are the best friends dream and i could ever ask for." sapnap mumbles against wilbur's chest and they all sigh, smiling fondly.

"we don't leave until a few days from now, though." dream says when sapnap pulls away from wilbur, drying his eyes on his sleeves. "why don't we do some stuff before then?"

"you guys wanna spar?" sam suggests and techno makes a face, making all of them laugh.

"no more birthday spars. we don't want another concussion now, do we?" techno says, crossings his arms.

"you're right, you're right." sapnap claps techno's shoulder. "let's just do what we always do."

"like old times." dream adds, grinning.

—

later that night, sapnap stays over at dream's house, the two of them staying on the roof and staring at the sky as the night breeze blows past them. it's quiet for a while, before sapnap speaks up.

"it's really happening, huh."

dream cranes his neck from where he lying down to look at sapnap before looking back up at the sky. "yeah."

"it doesn't feel like it. you think we're ready?"

"we've always been ready, sap. it's just the matter of putting things in action."

"you're really confident about this whole thing, huh? not even a little scared?" sapnap smiles down on him, making dream laugh and shrug.

"i try not to be."

"why—ah. let me guess, you're worried about making your soulmate worry." sapnap chuckles. "they've given you lots of scares these past few months, i'm sure they wouldn't hold it against you if you felt even just a _little_ bit scared, you know."

"i know. it's gotten easier to deal with too, actually." dream sits up. "but i still don't want to."

sapnap looks at him quietly before shrugging himself. "suit yourself. my soulmate and i have an unspoken competition about who could scare whoever at the worst times already and i just turned 18 today."

they both laugh as another breeze blows past. dream sighs, pulling his knees up to his chest.

"what are you thinking?" sapnap asks.

dream stays quiet for a bit and sapnap patiently waits for him. "i guess i'm kinda worried. what if i don't find them? what if i... make a mistake? what if i fail to live up to the expectations of my parents as an adventurer?" he confesses and sapnap frowns.

"shut the hell up, dude. your dad already told you how much better you are than him in combat, there's no way you haven't lived up to their expectations." the younger points out, punching dream's shoulder lightly. "and don't worry about not meeting your soulmate. everyone have already told us, we _will_ meet them. we just don't know when."

dream looks at sapnap again and smiles. "you're right. thanks, sap."

"of course." sapnap smiles back and a comfortable silence settle over them once again, staying there until they decide to turn in for the night and sleep.

—

"wakey, dream!"

dream startles from his sleep, bleary eyes opening and scanning his surroundings. sapnap stood by his desk, empty leather bundles in his hands. dream sits up, rubbing the sleep away from his eyes as he yawns. "sap?"

"the full moon's tomorrow."

dream looks at him as the information sinks in before he lets out a quiet 'oh'. sapnap smiles, trying to hide his nervousness but dream easily sees through it.

"you okay?" dream asks, getting out of bed to walk up to his friend. he reaches out to hold sapnap's arm gently before the younger sighs.

"i'm okay, just... nervous." sapnap shakes his head, pulling his arm away gently before lifting the bags in his hands up to dream's face. "anyway, packing time."

dream huffs as he smiles, taking some of the bags from sapnap. the latter offers him a similar smile before he walks to the living room, humming waiting for dream. the older of the two opens the drawer in his desk to pull out several pieces of paper where the things they absolutely need to bring on the adventure are all scribbled down. he walks over to sapnap with it and handing it over for the younger to read.

"that's actually less than what i thought."

"well," dream starts, taking a bag. "mom told me that you don't really need to bring a lot since you'll get a lot of stuff as you go. but, it wouldn't hurt to bring more stuff since it might actually help us out when we need it."

sapnap hums. "i've brought the pearls your mom gave me, techno's apples, sam's stuff, dad came here with me too with wilbur's gifts. wilbur got us shields, dude. he painted them too." he adds, leading dream to the door where the shields sat, leaning on the wall. dream whistles, smiling.

on the shields are the symbols they've decided on to represent themselves in a game they've played way back then. for some reason, the symbols stuck and now they use it whenever they want to label their things. for dream, it was a simple smile with pinprick dots for eyes, a messy circle around it to represent a head. for sapnap, it was a fire, red and yellow and orange, bright and not unlike a fully bloomed flower.

"that's actually really cool." dream says, crouching down and running his fingers on the painted surface gently. slowly, he starts to feel the rush of excitement course through his veins again, the feeling glinting in his eyes when sapnap looks at him. sapnap grins, his eyes reflecting the same thing back at dream.

"right. let's get packing."

they walk around the house, grabbing enough meat, bread, and fruits for the both of them for at least a week. they also grab some coal, flint, wood, tools, and wool for when they set up camp, as well as a few pieces of iron and gold just in case. they also take the important gifts they got from their friends and parents into a separate bundle, small enough for them to tie around their belts. dream heads over to his bed, pulling out the diamond sword still wrapped up neatly, a thin layer of dust collecting on the leather.

"what's that?"

dream looks over his shoulder before he works to untie the knots, pulling at the layers to reveal the sword to his friend. sapnap gasps, kneeling beside him with stars in his eyes. "what the heck, dude!"

"mom gave it to me." dream smiles, pulling the sword out of its place. "this is actually the first time i'm holding it." he adds, weighing the sword in his hand. it's fairly heavy, dream notes, but the weight would easily be advantageous to him as leverage.

"it's so pretty!" the younger exclaims before gasping slightly. "i forgot something."

"what?"

"we have to go to the blacksmith before we leave. i got us armor, too."

"no way."

"yes way. i collected the materials myself the other day, went out with the miners and they helped me." sapnap explains, a smug smile on his face while dream laughs in disbelief.

"is that why you were missing the entire day yesterday?"

"yup." sapnap replies before standing back up. "what else do we need?"

they continue packing up, slowly filling up 4 bundles, two for each of them to carry. they pack away the extra bundles too, talking softly as they finish up. dream looks ovwr to his desk, the glowstone still shining brightly on it. he walks over to it, grabbing some leftover cotton in his drawer to wrap around the stone. he places it in his bag, smiling when the stone's light still filters through the layers.

"is that everything?" sapnap asks as the dark blue of the sky slowly starts to lighten up. just when dream was about to answer, a knock on the door startles them both. dream walks over to open it, surprise evident on his face when he sees his friends and most of the village awake, waiting outside for them.

"what are you guys doing here?"

"it's almost dawn. you know, big day and all." sam smiles. "we're here to send you off."

"why... everyone else?"

sapnap walks over beside dream, eyes widening the same way dream's did. "what the hell?"

"are you boys all set?" the village elder asks. the two boys nod before she walks over with 2 small bundles in her hands as well. they look at her with curious eyes, making her chuckle.

"just a few potions for the road."

"what?" sapnap fumbles to open one of them and gasps when he sees the bottles. "no way."

"sap." his dad calls out, lifting up two chestplates. "got your armor bud."

sapnap raises his head and smiles, nudging dream with his shoulder. "there it is." he says before walking to his dad, who smiles down at his son with pride and fondness. "you really ready?"

"yes, dad." sapnap replies. "really. don't worry about me, i have dream by my side."

dream laughs a bit when he hears that, watching as sapnap's dad nod and help him wear the chestplate, adjusting whatever needed to be adjusted. they walk back to dream after, helping the latter with the chestplate as well. sapnap's dad steps back, humming to himself and knocking his hand on sapnap's chest gently. "look at you two."

they look out to everyone standing before them, lips breaking out into huge grins. their friends smile at them, giving the two of them nods and thumbs ups, eyes swirling with pride and excitement for them. dream walks up to sam who looked like he was about to tear up, placing a hand on the older's shoulder before pulling him into a hug.

"don't cry now, sam. we'll be back soon." he whispers and sam nods.

"i know. i just feel like i'm a dad who watched his kids grow up way too quickly."

the two of them chuckle at that, pulling away. dream looks back to sapnap, who already brought their bundles to their door.

"the sun's gonna rise soon." sapnap says and dream nods.

"time to go."

they walk to the east of the village, towards the plains past village territory. their group of friends talk and laugh about everything and nothing at once, joking around about how dream will probably get in a lot of trouble sapnap will have to pull him out of.

it gets noticeably tense when they see the end of their paved road, silence settling over them save for their footsteps and things bumping with each other.

they stop once they reach the edge, dream and sapnap looking at their friends once more.

"good luck." is all their friends say and they nod.

"we'll be back soon." they smile. they start walking, still facing backwards and waving their hands goodbye until they can barely see what them anymore.

—

the morning sun beats down on george's back as he's back by the river, eyes trained on the bushes where a zombie emerged last night once more. the first encounter had been long ago, but it wasn't the last time george saw one come out from the bushes. in fact, as the year went on, it became more frequent but it was always alone. last night had been the encounter where george decided that he should let someone know.

"you sure it was here?" quackity asks, trying to peer through the leaves of the bushes.

"yeah." comes his clipped reply, still slightly tense just in case something jumps at them. he knows it's day time and the monsters would start to burn once they step out to lunge towards them, but his guard is still up.

"why would there be zombies here?" karl asks and george sighs.

"that's what i'm asking too. this is still inside the village so unless there's something... bad going on, there shouldn't be any monsters coming nearby." he replies, sitting down on the grass.

"maybe it was just a straggler?" quackity offers as an explanation, crouching down beside george and leaning on his wooden sword.

"maybe. i hope so, honestly." george sighs once more, shaking his head. "anyway, how have you guys been?"

"good!" karl sits next to him, hand picking at the grass. "i've been around bad a lot recently at the farm, you guys should come with sometime. it's pretty calming over there."

quackity snickers. "whenever bad and i are together, all you guys will hear will be bad yelling 'language' at me."

"true." george laughs. he hums before clapping his hands together. "oh, i wanna ask you guys something."

"what's up?"

"dad gave me brewing stuff yesterday again but i haven't really gotten around doing anything with it. do you guys wanna be my taste testers for me?" george smiles and laughs when they both make a face. "oh come on, you guys."

"that's terrifying but because i love you george, i am willing to be your taste tester." quackity replies dramatically, making karl laugh loudly.

"since big q is down, i'm down too." karl adds and george smiles.

"alright, shall we go now or...?"

"sure."

they all stand up and start walking back to the village but not without george staying behind for bit, looking over his shoulder at the bushes, almost waiting, watching for another monster jump out. a shiver passes down his spine and he immediately supresses the slight fear bubbling in his gut.

"george?" karl calls out.

he finally looks away and smiles, ignoring the nagging at the back of his head. "coming."

—

"we should get horses." sapnap says as they continue walking, looking up at the sky with a hand to shield his eyes.

"true. but we don't have saddles, sadly."

"...saddle-y." sapnap jokes, snickering when the other groans.

"that was so dumb."

"you would be so bored without me." sapnap retorts, looking around where they are.

they're still in the plains, but they could already see trees forming a little border in the distance. there are also several wild animals roaming around them, munching on the fesh grass, bleating and mooing as they pass. beyond the animals, they could also see tall stalks of sunflowers growing, petals bright and healthy. if they look close enough, they'll see several bees buzzing around the flowers, collecting nectar.

"we should probably think about where to set camp soon." dream says as he skips over a random water pool in the middle of the ground. "we don't know how dense this forest is, and i don't really want to get stuck in there in the middle of the night."

"should we set up just before it then? maybe do some further strategizing too, y'know, combat teamwork and stuff?" sapnap suggests, adjusting the bundles on his shoulders.

"that's not a bad idea." dream hums before continuing. "we also need to set up a watch system. do you want to take first watch at night?"

sapnap shrugs. "sure."

they continue walking until the sun makes it's way to the zenith, indicating that it was already noon. they sit under the shade of a tree in the middle of the plains, opening their bundle of food and pulling out a few fruits and bread to eat for lunch.

"you should sleep as soon as we get to set up camp. if i'm not wrong, we should be near the forest in at least an hour or maybe half, and since you're taking first watch, i want you to get some sleep for it. then i'll wake you for supper." dream says as they munch on their food, sapnap humming beside him and he shakes his head.

"nah, i told you. i think we should talk further first about plans and stuff. i could help you with placing down torches in the vicinity, too. i'll get some sleep in before supper, don't worry, but yeah."

"okay, fine." dream agrees, closing his eyes as he leans against the tree, a cool breeze blowing past. "rest time."

sapnap chuckles. a silence settles over them before sapnap notices that dream's breathing has deepened, the older boy falling asleep.

—

"something is so off. is it supposed to be this _sour_?" quackity teases, laughing when george frowns at them, arms crossed with the brewing stand bubbling behind him.

"don't lie to me, quackity." george chides.

"i'm not! taste it, come on." he pushes the bottle to george, watching and biting back a smile on his lips as george tips the contents of the bottle into his mouth. george makes a face, which makes the other two laugh. "i told you, man."

george groans. "i must've missed something."

"how long were they supposed to be brewed?" karl asks. george hums, tapping his chin.

"5 minutes?" he replies, unsure. "maybe i didnt steep the melon long enough."

"probably." quackity and karl say at the same time, making them laugh.

"did you guys feel anything when you drank it, though? any feelings of—i don't know—feeling better?" he asks, frowning even more when quackity shakes his head.

"why don't you check the book again?" karl suggests and george sighs, nodding and pulling the book of brewing recipes closer to him.

"i think i know where you went wrong." karl says, pointing at a certain part of the recipe. "i didn't see you use any of the nether wart you prepared."

george slaps his forehead, wincing when it stung more that he expected, eliciting another laugh from his friends. he sighs then, a smile on his face as he shrugs. "time to start from square one i guess."

"this is the first time i'm actually watching someone brew potions. am i the only one who kinda feels unnerved that we're drinking stuff that's from the underworld?" quackity points out. george hums thoughtfully while karl makes a face.

"blaze powder transforms the ingredients actually, extracting the abilities from them into a concentrated form and filtering out the actual organic matter. that's why we cant use normal coal or anything for it, because it would be as effective as throwing the materials into a campfire, roasting it." george explains, raising an eyebrow at quackity when he says the last line, the latter smiling sheepishly.

"so it's not really us drinking the ingredients from the underworld, it's the properties with magical undertones in them that we're taking in. but i guess the kind of material brewed into the base matters when it comes to taste, together with the kind of ability it has." he adds as the awkward potion base finishes brewing, taking a piece of cloth to carefully take the bottle out of the stand and not burn himself.

"that's actually really cool." karl says as he hands george the chopped up pieces of glistening melon. the older's smile widens, star in his eyes as he continues to brew with obvious passion.

"i know! it's like we're creating magic, in a way. but i guess it already is sort of magic."

"true." the other two say at the same time once more as they wait for the health potion to brew. karl and quackity start bickering after a while, george just watching them and laughing a bit when he feels a tug in his gut, light and nothing unpleasant like the one's he would usually feel from his soulmate. he pauses in confusion, before brushing the feeling aside.

—

they make it to the border of the forest exactly in the amount of time dream had predicted earlier. they place their bundles down on the most even ground they could find, huffing and clapping their hands after.

"if im not wrong, it's currently—" sapnap looks up at sky, trying to pinpoint the time using the sun's position. "2 in the afternoon? maybe 3?"

"im gonna look for stuff for a campfire, will you be okay setting up camp on your own for a bit?" dream says, already peeking through the thick trunks of the forest trees. sapnap makes a noise in affirmation, already making a move to pull out the sleeping bags they brought on their trip and laying it on the ground.

"don't get lost." sapnap reminds him and he chuckles.

"i'm not wilbur." he retorts, making the other laugh.

"scream if you need help?"

"of course."

dream secures his sword on his back, as well as his shield and an empty bundle to put the stuff in as he walks into the forest. he keeps his guard him, ears perking up for any noise that might come from a threat. he picks up a few stones off the ground, placing them into the bundle as he hums a little tune under his breath. he walks a little deeper in, pulling his sword out to cut off a few branches that would be used as kindling, and a few dried leaves as tinder.

he looks down into the bundle and deems it enough, throwing the bundle over his shoulder once more and makes sure nothing falls from it. looking around, he decides to look around a bit more, making lines on the ground with a branch so he doesn't get himself lost.

he walks in a certain direction for a few more minutes before he notices than the soil is noticeably healthier and moist, indicating that there should be a water source nearby. he keeps a mental note of it before he decides to walk back to sapnap, following his markings on the ground.

"hey." he says once he emerges from the forest. sapnap is already sitting down on the ground, throwing seeds on the ground and a few wild chickens peck at it. he looks up at dream, smiling.

"hey. what'd you find?"

"there's probably a water source deeper into the forest, which means that this forest is most likely going to be dense. we can look for it in the morning and hope that it doesn't take us too long to navigate through. also," he takes the bundle of materials in his hand. "campfire stuff."

"let's hope that water source isn't a swamp." sanap says, standing up carefully as to not startle the chickens. he walks up to dream and take the bundle, peeking into it. "we'll need more wood later into the night."

"we'll get more after supper." dream says and sapnap nods. they start to set up the campfire, not igniting it since there was still daylight. instead, they sit on the ground and talk about how they'll fight in case monsters approach them. wake the other person up if a threat is confirmed. if splitting up, don't take too long and scream for help when needed. always be on guard and be alert. they decide to spar for a bit to get used to their heavier swords, attacks slow and calculated in order to prevent hurting the other. they talk about the weak spots of monsters and how to keep calm and rational during fights, until the sky turns slightly orange, telling them that it's already late afternoon.

"you should sleep. i'll wake you up when i've cooked and all." dream says as he digs small holes in the ground for branches to stick into for a spit over the campfire. sapnap settles into his sleeping bag without another word, blinking up at dream before yawning.

"goodnight. don't burn the food or anything." he says as he closes his eyes, missing the way dream rolls his eyes.

"goodnight."

—

their first night suprisingly goes kind of uneventful, sapnap only having to wake dream up once because he heard the clattering of bones together, a telltale sign of a reanimated skeleton nearby. dream immediately perks up at that, all eyes and ears as his hands grab his sword and shield, sitting up. they find the monster hiding behind one of the tree trunks a bit far from them.

"ready?" dream asks as they keep their eyes on the skeleton, using the fact that the monster hasn't sensed their presence to their advantage.

"yes." sapnap whispers back before they approach, swinging their swords in perfect tandem, one shield raising when the skeleton aims at one of them, the other attacking to stop the monster's attack. they beat the monster unscathed, picking up the bones and a couple arrows that were salvageable from the remains.

they stay up together after that, talking about the encounter and how they could've done better or be more efficient as the morning sun rises from the horizon, birds chirping from the forest as they wake. they decide to stay and hunt a bit, deciding to kill the chickens sapnap was feeding yesterday. they decide to prepare the animal on the next time they camp, wrapping it with some of the leather they brought.

they pack up their things, making sure the campfire they used was completely snuffed out before they set off into the forest with the sun already almost at the zenith once more. the marks dream made the day before are still visible and they follow it until the spot where dream notices the healthier soil.

"oh. i guess it wouldn't be a swamp then?" sapnap saying, poking at the ground with the tip of his foot

"yeah. probably a lake and a clearing. or a river. either would be nice so we can wash up and stuff plus get more clean water for the road." dream says, smiling a bit at what sapnap was doing.

sapnap adjusts the bundles on his shoulder. "let's go then."

—

george walks onto the farm with two bottles in his hands, eyes shifting around looking for his friends. the brewing session yesterday was a success, finally brewing the potions properly. he tested it out on quackity, giving the younger a small sip of a harming potion carefully brewed by his dad exactly for testing purposes, promising that it would hurt anyone who drinks it too bad, easily washed away with any kind of health potion. they learn that george's potions aren't as potent yet, but it was good start for a beginner.

"george!" skeppy greets him, bad tagging along behind him and waving his hands. "what's up?"

george smiles, lifting his hands up to show them the potions. "i did stuff."

they look at him with surprise and awe, before bad's smile turns into a teasing smirk. "are you sure these work?"

george rolls his eyes. "duh. i wouldn't have brought it to show you if it didn't. ask alex, he took most of the pain from the test runs."

"deserved." bad jokes making them chuckle. "i'm guessing we're the second round of testers?" he adds, taking one the bottles and swirling the liquid around, watching the subtle shimmers from the melon swimming in it, reflecting the sunlight.

"yup. mandatory potion testing for friendship." george replies as he hands the other bottle to skeppy, who still looks skeptical. he also pulls out the same harming potions testers for them, the dark, murky purple liquid contained in small vials.

bad pops the cork of the harming potion open before he scrunches his face at the smell of it. "is it—"

"supposed to smell that bad? yes. dad told me the spider eyes used are fermented with a lot more sugar than usual which makes it not as harmful as the ones with the perfect amount and stuff, but makes it smell way worse than it should. just pinch your nose as you drink it." george interrupts and explains, smiling when bad frowns but follows his instructions, skeppy doing the same.

the two of them immediately start coughing, a sign that the potion's effects were immediate. they open up george's potion and downs it in one swig, surprised that it washes away the harming potion almost as instantly as it hurt them. bad smiles, giving george the bottle back before clapping.

"good job, george. that actually worked!" bad says and george rolls his eyes again before laughing.

"thanks, i guess."

they talk a little bit more, joking and explaining more about the potions before skeppy says something that made george's stomach fall.

"say that again?" george says, trying his best not to let his voice shake.

"i said," skeppy begins, looking across the farm. "a zombie appeared near here the other night. iron golems are stationed near the farm since we're at the edge of the village, but never in my life here have i seen one come this close."

"when was this?"

skeppy looks at george, surprised to see him share the same worried look. "uh...two nights ago, i think? though, bad here told me that he saw one yesterday too. it's kinda worrying, don't you think?"

george nods, face stoic and eyebrows furrowed. _they're coming from here too then... what about the other ends of the village?_ he starts thinking, hand coming to up to his mouth to bite his nails, slightly anxious.

"george?"

"they're coming from the river end too." he confesses. "i-i've told quackity and karl about it, but we were convinced that they could've just been stragglers. but if they're coming from here too..."

"shouldn't we let the village head know?" bad says, worry evident in the creases of his forehead. "maybe they could set up more golems and stuff...anyway, we can't keep this from them. this could endanger all of us here."

"you're right." george says. "you guys wanna come with? the more witnesses the merrier, or something along those lines." he chuckles nervously, shaking his head before leading the way to the village center.

—

"you reckon there would be monsters under the shade?" sapnap asks, breaking the comfortable silence between them. dream hums, nodding.

"yeah. that's why we always keep our guard up—" he cuts himself off, body perking up and stopping in his tracks. sapnap stops beside him, confused. dream makes a gesture to hush him and it's silent once more, save from the sounds the forest makes.

"do you hear that?" dream asks after a while. sapnap shakes his head, eyes roaming around. "i think i hear water. like, flowing water."

"what?" sapnap says before straining his ears to hear what his friend does, shaking his head when he can't. "i don't hear anything."

dream frowns a bit, but he looks in the direction where he hears it. _a little bit to the left?_ "i think it's coming from there."

"if you hear flowing water, then aren't we approaching a river?" sapnap points out, following dream towards the sound. "or maybe a waterfall. how the hell do you hear anything in the first place?"

dream shrugs, laughing a bit. they continue walking, stances relaxed as sapnap whistles a tune, watching the sunlight filter through the leaves of the trees, creating patterns of shadows on the ground.

their calm bubble is popped when an arrow whizzes past them, cutting a small wound on dream's cheek. sapnap yelps as dream raises his shield to protect sapnap and himself, another arrow burying itself on the wood. "raise your shield, sap. come on, battle time again."

sapnap does as he's told, raising his own shield as he leaves dream's side, eyes peeking over the iron edges of the shield to look for their target. he curses when he sees two skeletons under the shade of an oak tree. "there's two, dream!"

"can you battle one alone?" dream asks, deflecting another arrow.

"i think so?" sapnap replies, his voice breaking at the end of his sentence.

"okay. once they fire again, we block then rush in. remember to aim for their heads." sapnap nods.

they count in their heads as they watch the skeletons nock their arrows onto their bows. _3, 2, 1..._

the skeletons shoot, and they raise their shields to block before they swiftly charge forward, pulling their swords from their sheaths and swinging at the monsters. dream tries to disarm his target, blade slicing through the bow's string and then driving the pommel of his sword against the skull of the skeleton, stunning it. he takes a quick look up to see sapnap aim a swing against the temple of his target, fracturing the bone slightly. dream looks back down to his target, pointing his sword directly at the center of the top of the skull, driving it down and grunting as he does. the skeleton goes lifeless under him after, falling onto the ground into a head of bones. he looks up at sapnap once more and he runs behind the monster, swinging at its torso the same time sapnap thrusts his sword through the center of its eye sockets.

the bones clatter to the ground and they both pant, looking at each other before a smile breaks on their lips and they laugh. dream raises a hand to gingerly touch the wound on his cheek, his finger pulling away with blood on the pad of it.

"you need to clean that up." sapnap says, pulling his sword from the skull, wincing at the sound of metal scraping against bone.

"let's find that river then." dream replies, wiping his finger on his pants. "if it is a river then that's actually helpful. aside from washing up, we can follow it and it could leads out of the forest, maybe even a river village?"

"you think there'll be a village?" sapnap asks as they continue to walk.

"i hope there is. it'll help up out a lot." dream hums before sighing. "we might have to spend the night on the riverbank actually. it's already past 12, if i'm not wrong, and we haven't eaten at all."

"that's fine. same watch system?" sapnap asks and dream nods.

they continue walking, bantering a bit and munching on bread until the sky turns orange and sapnap finally hears the flowing water. they decide to hurry it up, not wanting the sky to get too dark before they reach the river. the sun was halfway down the horizon when they finally find the clearing, sighing in relief as they gently put their stuff down. sapnap peers at the clear water, gasping in excitement.

"dream! there's fish in the river." sapnap calls out, pointing at the water. right on cue, a fish flaps its tail above the water, flicking droplets at sapnap and causing him to yelp. dream laughs, shaking his head.

"you want fish for breakfast?"

"i mean, why not?" sapnap replies as he walks back toward dream, sitting down on a dry patch of grass. "wash your face. the blood is already dry on your skin."

dream crouches over the riverbank, scooping water with his hand and wipes ot against his cheek. he holds back a wince when the cool water enters his wound, making it sting a bit.

"i'm gonna get campfire stuff, okay?" sapnap tells him, already halfway through the border of the clearing and the forest, shield and sword at hand.

"be careful!" dream calls out, looking over his shoulder briefly before facing the river again, washing his entire face. _it's quiet_ , dream thinks, looking up at the darkening sky. he feels a small tug in his gut, making him tense up before he realizes that it doesn't feel like the usual protective reflex he'd feel, but he knows that it's still soulmate related.

"huh, weird." he says aloud. he looks over at the border again, humming before he stands up and walks to where their stuff were. he sets up the sleeping bags again, laying it out gently before he grabs the carefully wrapped chicken from their things.

he digs a hole in the ground, grabbing his sword. he carefully prepares the animal, plucking the feathers away, draining its blood and, removing the innards completely. he walks to the river to wash the animal, the current carrying away the pinkish water.

"you work fast." sapnap says, dropping rocks and twigs on the ground.

"had training."

they set up the fire, lighting it up and putting the chicken through the spit to roast it. they wait, sapnap washing up at the river while dream cleans his sword. the chicken finishes and they start to eat, sharing stories and laughing a bit.

"my soulmate is probably winning at our competition of scaring each other at the worst times. i was getting stuff for the campfire, yeah? something rustles beside me and then they suddenly decide to give me a scare. i almost yelled for you, man." sapnap pouts, dropping the chicken bone in the hole they made. dream laughs, shaking his head.

"my soulmate hasn't done anything recently. honestly i'm glad they're safe." dream says, looking up at the stars. "should i scare them?"

"doesn't it have to be genuine for it to work?"

"dunno."

they stay quiet for a minute before they both tey to scare each other at the same time, accidentally yelling at each other and startling the other. they blink, before they laugh out loud, dream falling to lie on his back, a wheeze escaping his lips as sapnap tears up, hands clutching his stomach.

"that was so stupid. i can't believe we thought of the same thing."

"i can't believe it worked!" sapnap adds, wiping away a stray tear. dream shakes his head, groaning as he sits back up. they clean up, still slightly giggling before sapnap is already settling into his sleeping bag to sleep. they bid each other goodnight, and dream hums another random tune under his breath, looking at the stars.

_where are you, i wonder?_

—

george watches as his dad sets up another iron golem, the golem coming to life once he chants a spell under his breath. beady red eyes look at them, his dad gently commanding the golem to walk towards the bushes where george saw the first zombie.

"we don't have enough iron to make anymore golems, so we can only really put them here and where skeppy saw one, since these are the only places with confirmed sightings."

"how many golems around the village now, then?"

"4? two at both of our entrances and the two new ones."

george sighs, worry creeping into his bones. his dad notices this and places his hands on george's shoulders. "george, calm."

"what if more come from the unprotected places, dad?"

"don't worry too much now, okay?" his dad says and george tries to agree, but the nagging feeling at the back of his brain becomes stronger.

"okay." he forces out anyway, huffing out a breath. "okay."

his dad gives him a look, sighing quietly as well. "let's go home, kid."

"dad, mind if you give me a sword?" george asks on the way home. "it doesn't matter what it's made of, i just want one that could attack these monsters."

"i'll give you my old iron one." his dad replies after a moment of thought, george's face lighting up. "george, i know you're worried and all but you have to promise me that if anything does happen, you'll stay back and be safe, okay?"

"uh—"

"no buts, george. promise me."

george frowns. "fine."

—

dream wakes sapnap up when the sun rises, the two of them already having switched to let sapnap rest once more. they've decided to trek along the river, following its current in hopes of it taking them out of the forest.

they spend a few more nights within the woods though, the forest bigger than they had initially thought. they hunt for wild pigs that roam through the area for food, cleaning it up and roasting it for dinner and keeping the rest for the next day. they bathe in the river too, washing their clothes and drying it underneath the scorching noon sun while they use sharpened sticks to hunt for fish in where they find out that sapnap is surprisingly skilled in.

it was on the 4th night in the forest that they decide not to camp, seeing that the trees were starting to thin out.

"i think we can get out tonight." dream says and grunts, stabbing a spider through its head. he pulls his sword out, an icky green substance sticking onto the blade. dream makes a face as sapnap fends off another skeleton.

"yeah, if we make it out alive with all these monsters around."

"we've managed almost a week, i think we can manage one more night." dream tries to get the substance off his sword, swinging it through the air repeatedly. some of it accidentally land on sapnap, making the younger screech.

"dream! that's gross!" he wipes it off with his sleeve, making a face while dream smiles at him sheepishly.

"sorry." he says as sapnap kills off the skeleton, huffing as the magic holding the bones together breaks.

"i knew we were going to have to fight a lot of things, but not this much."

"well, i guess it's more fun if it was this eventful." they continue to briskly walk, bundles bouncing against their backs. they hear a familiar hiss, their steps freezing at the same time as they face each other.

" _creeper."_ sapnap whispers before their eyes both widen and they break into a run, dream laughing while sapnap shrieks. they still follow the river in their haste, a spider jumping at them from sapnap's side, causing the younger to shriek once more and hide behind dream. " _dream!_ " he screeches. 

the said boy dissolves into wheezing laughter as he swings his sword skillfully at the spider, the same green goo spurting out and towards them. sapnap makes another noise before he decides to help dream out with the monster, stabbing it at the head.

"s-sapnap, what the _heck_." dream wheezes out, still laughing at his younger friend. sapnap pouts, making another ick face as he sees the green substance on his skin again.

"fuck that dude, never again." sapnap says, making dream crack up even more, collapsing onto his knees as he coughs from laughing too much.

once they've calmed down, they see that they're already almost out the forest, the border literally steps away. they look at each other before rushing out, seeing buildings and lights in the distance.

"a village!" sapnap points out, a smile on his face. dream smiles as well but it slowly fades as he hears the ringing of the village bell, iron golems grunting as it fends something off. dream walks forward, squinting at it and he gasps when he realizes what was happening.

"sapnap." he says, eyes wide as he watches zombies start to swarm around the village, more than ten on each side of the area.

"what—" sapnap cuts himself off when they both feel an intense tug on their guts, blood running cold in realization.

"m-my soulmate is in danger." dream states, swallowing thickly. sapnap whips his head towards his friend, eyes just as wide.

"so is mine."

they hear a shriek from the village and it startles them both. their grip on their swords tighten.

"sapnap." dream calls out once more, pointing at the village. he continues to speak, breathing heavily as the tug on his gut pulls even worse when they hear another shriek.

" _that's a zombie siege._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY LISTEN i said in the first chapter that i cut this into 3 parts but honestly i think i might make it 4 instead ?? since i didn't realize it would take this long for me to world build and move the plot
> 
> anyway :) i'll leave you guys with a cliffhanger for now and i _might_ not update next week since its my finals week but i'll still try to !! ok thats all thank u for ur time and i hope you can wait for me ^^


	3. iii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "are you okay?" the person says before turning to look at george, emerald green meeting his own brown ones. both of their breaths hitch at the same time, eyes widening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw// blood, wounds, zombies, language
> 
> i'm back from my finals! 
> 
> ok, honestly i didnt particularly like how this chapter turned out but !! i hope you guys enjoy it anyways :)
> 
> tommy and tubbo are introduced in this chapter!! their relationship is _**strictly platonic**_ , bordering being siblings but i didn't really heavily imply anything :] 
> 
> from here on out, its mostly going to be dream centric but there will still be several povs switches! that's all :D

"karl!" george yelps, pulling his friend's arm as they run towards the village bell, looking over their shoulders as a zombie lunges at them. he wields the sword his dad gave him, stopping behind to swing at the monster as karl runs, belatedly realizing george had stopped to fight.

"george, come on!" he says, legs frozen despite wanting to help his friend. he watches as the zombie nearly grabs onto george's sleeve, before the boy swings once more, luckily hitting the monster's arm and cutting it off. rotting blood splatters on his cheek as the zombie groans, not even fazed by the missing limb. george steps back, wiping his cheek onto his shoulder before turning around to run towards karl, both of them running further into the village.

"where's quackity?!" george huffs out, eyes frantically looking around the village as the people lock in their houses, adventurers and lumberjacks coming out with weapons in their hands as his dad rings the village bell, yelling out orders.

"i don't know! his house was empty when i passed by it looking for you." karl replies, before yelping and falling onto the ground when a zombie drops down from one of the roofs. " _george!_ "

george looks back, eyes wide as he sees the zombie crawl incredibly fast close to karl. he rushes back, raising his sword and aiming to decapitate the monster. he misses the neck by a few inches but it stops the zombie either way, more blood seeping into the ground. karl holds back a gag, swallowing as he shakily scrambles to stand up.

"i-i need a sword. or an axe—anything!" he says as they continue to run. his dad spots him from the bell running with karl, yelling at him.

"george, go inside the brewery _now_!"

george grits his teeth, shaking his head. "we'll find everyone else first! they could be by the farm, and they would need _help,_ dad!"

"george!"

but the boy ignores him, running towards the farm near the edge of the village where bad and skeppy live. the villagers shriek, running with pale faces as george and karl pant and run against the current of people. they soon reach the farm land, finding that the lumberjacks are there too, wielding iron axes against the siege. bad spots them, immediately running to them with tears flowing down his cheeks.

"bad!" george exclaims, holding his up by the shoulders as bad slumps against him, sobbing. "bad, what happened? what's wrong, why are you crying?"

"s-skeppy—" bad swallows, sniffling and taking a deep breath as he tries to explain what happened. "skeppy got bit by one of the zombies, george." another sob wracks through bad's lungs, fresh tears falling from his eyes.

"w-what—"

"he's in the farmhouse—george, he's bleeding out and i've done all i could to stop the bleeding but nothing's working, _george_. i don't know what to do." george immediately hugs his friend, patting his back and trying to think of a plan. his eyes flit around their surroundings, gaze catching a few zombies breaking through the defense of the lumberjacks. he looks behind him and sees that the route he and karl took is clear, which means—

"karl, go with bad back to skeppy. find all the clean cloth you could find and press it against the wound, make sure skeppy stays awake. i'm going to run to the brewery and get some stuff really quick and i'll try to look for alex while i'm at it. barricade the entrances and windows. i'll come back." he says, pulling away from bad and immediately running, not letting his friends stop him. karl hurriedly escorts bad back to the farmhouse, cursing under his breath.

george runs as fast as he can and bursts through the brewery door, grabbing the nearest bundle and emptying it onto the floor, grabbing awkward potions, ingredients, a stand, and fully brewed health and strength potions. he stuffs them into the bag quickly, making sure it's secure before he rushes back out the door, eyes sweeping through the path and yelling out quackity's name.

"quackity, where are you?!" he yells as he runs back to the farmhouse, hugging the bundle to his chest with one arm and holding the sword in another. he swears when he doesn't see their friend at all, the farmhouse already coming up in his vision. he reaches the house in record speed, knocking on the door frantically. "karl, it's me!"

the door immediately opens and he startles when he hears skeppy sob loudly in pain. george looks down and sees karl's bloody hands, as well as the numerous blood-soaked rags on the floor. he curses, placing the bag down beside skeppy as karl barricades the door once more.

bad continues to sob beside him while he assesses where the wound is. skeppy's sleeve was completely soaked in blood, the source coming from his shoulder. george breathes out, pulling out a bottle of strength and health from his bag.

"bad, help me make him sit up so he could drink." he says, carefully maneuvering around skeppy. bad nods, wiping his tears with the back of his hands and going around the bed to gently pull skeppy up with his uninjured shoulder. skeppy cries in pain, gripping bad's arm to ground him and george sucks in a breath.

"drink, skeppy, drink." he says, popping the cork and helping his friend drink the strength potion. "how long has it been since he's bit?"

"n-not long, i think around 10 minutes before i saw you guys." bad answers. george hums and gently lays skeppy back down.

"zombie infections don't start to spread until 20 minutes since contact and without any treatment so we have to be quick. can you get me a bucket of water and a cloth, please? the strength potion will make this easier for skeppy but it'll still hurt so i might need someone to hold him down while i clean the wound."

karl and bad move immediately, and george works to pull away skeppy's clothes from the wound. he murmurs apologies when skeppy winces and sobs, getting to work as soon as his friends come back with the stuff. he gently dabs away the blood, exposing the teeth marks on skeppy's skin. once most of the blood has been cleaned out, he pops the health potion open and looks at karl.

"please." is all he says before they nod, holding skeppy's legs and shoulder down.

"skeppy, this'll hurt. take a deep breath for me, please?"

skeppy nods, grabbing onto bad's arm once more as he breathes. george pours the potion onto the wound, making sure it goes through the punctures and mixing with the blood.

a thud comes from the door, making them freeze while skeppy thrashes from the pain, a telltale groan from a zombie coming right after it.

"shit." george curses lowly, standing up and grabbing his sword. "karl! dress the wound the best you can. i'm going to look for quackity."

"george, do not fucking go outside—" karl says but george was already pulling the door open, sword in front of him.

the zombie moved from the door to the window, only noticing george's appearance when the boy swings the sword against the monster's shoulder.

 _okay. okay, i can do this, there's only one—_ he thinks before he hears another one groan behind him, immediately stepping to the side so that both zombies are in his vision. he swings again at the one nearest to him but he misses, only grazing the monster's chest with the tip of his sword. it lunges at him as he tries to lift sword back up, the monster's hands grabbing onto the blade. he presses his palm onto the flat of the blade as well, pushing to keep it away as it shifts all its weight against george and his right foot is forced to step back so he doesn't fall to his back. _fuck, fuckfuckfuck—_

he glances to the side to see the other zombie walking closer, and then he looks back at the zombie in front of him, the monster close enough for george to smell the scent of putrid breath and rotting flesh. he can feel the edges of the blade start to cut into his palms under the weight of the zombie. _nononono—_

he closes his eyes, breathing shallow as the zombie pushes against him again, his arms shaking as he holds the blade up and away. _please—_

he's about to lose strength when he hears footsteps, a grunt, and the sound of a blade tearing and burying itself into flesh, a zombie gurgling as it falls to the ground. he opens his eyes at the exact moment a leg comes up to kick the zombie away from him, a flash of green and blue running across his vision before he hears another gurgle. he blinks, swallows, and then pants, eyes wide as he looks up at the person who saved him.

"are you okay?" the person says before turning to look at george, emerald green meeting his own brown ones. both of their breaths hitch at the same time, eyes widening. george feels a familiar tug in his gut before he nods shakily. the boy nods as well, huffing a breath and looking away from him.

"you should go inside." the boy says almost softly, a constrast to the panicked shrieks and shouts of the village. he shifts his weight, scanning the area with narrowed eyes and george could almost hear the gears turning in his head. he considers following the boy's instructions and tend to skeppy but he shakes his head.

"i-i can't. i have to look for my friend." george says, his grip on his sword tightening. the boy frowns at him, mouth opening already to reprimand him but george cuts him off.

"look, thank you for saving me and all, but i wouldn't be able to sit still knowing my friend is still out there without anyone knowing if he's safe or not."

the boy stays quiet for a moment before he sighs, nodding his head. "alright. i'll come with you."

"what?"

"i'll come with you. let's look for your friend while i try to rendezvous with mine." he adjusts the shield on his left arm. "where do we go?"

—

dream follows the boy through the village, senses on high alert. he grabs the boy's arm almost on instinct when he sees a zombie coming from the right, pulling him behind him as he raises his sword and swings, the blade easily decapitating the monster. he looks back at the boy who stares at him with wide eyes and he holds back the smile tugging at his lips.

"come on." he says and the boy startles out of his trance, nodding his head and running.

"quackity?" the boy yells and dream assumes it's his friend's name. he decides to do the same, calling for sapnap.

they continue running for a few more minutes, calling out to their friends while dream protects the boy from the monsters. the latter tries to help out which makes dream smile but he does most of the fighting, the boy obviously inexperienced in it.

"sapnap?" dream yells again, bringing his sword down against the skull of another zombie.

"dream!" he hears sapnap reply and his head immediately turns to the direction of the voice, but he couldn't see sapnap anywhere.

"where are you?"

sapnap emerges from behind a house, supporting another person with their arm over his shoulder. the boy beside dream gasps and rushes in immediately, dream following in surprise.

"quackity!" the boy calls out, hovering over the boy sapnap was with. dream makes eye contact with the younger, eyebrow raising as sapnap shrugs.

"george? what the hell are you doing out here?" the other boy—quackity—asks, eyes widening before he winces.

"looking for _you_! what happened to you?" the boy dream was with— _george_ , he corrects himself—replies, quackity pulling his arm away from sapnap before gently kneeling to the ground, george kneeling in front of him.

"i found him sitting against the back of that house," sapnap says, pointing at the building they appeared from. "he has a sprained leg and the side of his chest is bruised so we need to immediately get that checked in case he broke anything."

"i was getting chased by the riverside by like, 3 zombies or so, then i tripped on a root, fell on my side, hit a huge rock. y'know, normal everyday stuff." quackity jokes, chuckling nervously before wincing again. sapnap smiles a bit with him before shaking his head.

"we can talk about what happened later, let's get you guys somewhere safe." dream says, eyes immediately finding george's. brown eyes look at him and understanding clicks immediately, george standing up and looking at quackity.

"bad, skeppy, and karl are all at the farmhouse, but skeppy's injured too. we have to get there, _fast_. you think you can manage, big q?" george asks in one breath, sighing when quackity nods. sapnap lets the boy hook his arm over his shoulder again, supporting half his weight as they run through the village. dream fends off most of the zombies, looking back every 10 seconds to check on his companions.

they reach the farm but before they could get to the house, dream sees a group of zombies swarming two children no older than 14, one of them with just a wooden sword and the other defenseless. he stops immediately, looking back at the group who stares back at him with confusion.

"go to the house." he looks at george again, the boy's eyes looking at him with an unreadable expression which makes him hesitate slightly. "george, was it? i think you should carry your friend so sapnap can protect you guys better. sap," dream says anyway before he looks at his friend who immediately nods without another word, carefully transferring quackity over to george. "i'll be back." dream says before taking off towards the children.

"come on." sapnap says, letting george lead the way.

—

"stay behind me, tubbo." dream hears the blond boy with the sword say, the other boy clutching the back of his friend's shirt.

"we should run. tommy, come on!" he says.

"there's monsters behind us too, tubbo! we can't, we can't run. we're surrounded." the blond, tommy, grits out. dream adjusts the hold on his sword, swinging and killing one of the zombies behind the kids.

"you two!" he calls out. "get out of here!"

the kids look at him in surprise, making dream swear loudly, kicking the zombie in front of him away. "watch out!"

tommy looks back in front to see the zombie lunge at him, his reflexes making him lift his sword in defense but it gets swatted away by the monster. the kids shriek, the zombie's arm darting out grab at tommy's arm with its mouth open. dream holds his sword in his other hand as he runs, grabbing tommy's arm away from the monster with his now free hand but he didn't move away fast enough, having his arm bitten instead. he hisses, lifting his arm to drive the end of his shield through the zombie's skull. the zombie falls to the ground lifeless, the muffled thud on the ground making the kids flinch slightly.

"run! get out of here, go!" he yells, the adrenaline pumping through his veins numbing the pain.

they look at him with wide eyes, fear obviously swirling in them. _they're hesitating,_ dream realizes. he glances at the rest of the zombies nearby before glaring at the children. "don't worry about me. go! get into a safe place, i'll follow you until you guys are safe!"

"you're injured!" the boy with the darker hair says, eyes turning glassy as he looks at dream's wound.

"i'm fine, just—come on. where're your parents?"

the blond boy swears, holding his friend's arm and running towards a certain direction. dream follows, making sure that none of the monsters get near them. they see a worried man with hair as blond as tommy's look around, relief flooding his face when he sees the kids.

"phil!" the blond yells, waving his arm in the air.

"tommy! tubbo! where were you two?!" the man's voice breaks at the end of the sentence with worry. he looks up at dream with a wide smile but it falls almost instantly when he sees dream's bloodied sleeve. he opens his mouth but dream raises a hand, a smile on his own face.

"i'll be fine. but please, get somewhere safe." is all he says before he takes off once more, running back towards the farmhouse. he kills a few more zombies while he's at it, letting a few more villagers run further to the center before he slams a hand onto the farmhouse door.

"sap!" he says, panting against the wood. he hears things being pushed and pulled through the door so he stands up straight, his hand flying up to cover his wound. the door flies open and behind it was george, who pulls him in and slams the door shut immediately, blocking it with tables and chairs.

dream walks further into the house, sapnap coming out of the bedroom and approaching him. "dream!"

"sap." he says, a tired smile on his face. sapnap smiles back, giving him a once over. his friend swears loudly when he sees dream's wound.

"what the _fuck_ happened?!" sapnap says, pulling away the hand covering the wound.

"what's going on?" george asks when he finishes barricading the door, inhaling sharply when he sees the bite. he looks up into dream's green eyes with something akin to determination. "go to the bedroom."

"what–"

"just go! sapnap, please ask him to sit down on a chair or something."

sapnap takes dream's sword and shield then he pulls him into the bedroom where he sees the rest of the people george mentioned when they found quackity. "what the fuck happened, dream?"

"the kid was about to get bit—"

"so you let it bite _you_ instead?"

"what else was i supposed to do, sapnap?" dream argues weakly. "those boys wouldn't have made it home alive if they got bit."

"but what about _you_ , dream? huh?" sapnap says, expression angry. dream huffs a breath, looking away as george enters the room.

"sapnap, can you expose the wound please?" he says, putting down a bucket of water on the floor next to dream, dipping a clean rag into it. sapnap gently grabs dream's arm, pulling the sleeve away. dream holds back a wince, biting his lower lip instead.

"that's... that's kind of a deep wound. how long has it been since you were bit?" george asks, eyes trained on the blood as he cleans it off. he looks up at dream when the boy doesn't reply. "dream?"

dream, who was just staring at his arm with slightly glazed eyes as they worked on it, blinks. "huh? uh, i don't know—"

"are you okay? what are you feeling?"

"t-tired? a little dizzy b-but i'm okay—"

"karl, hand me the potions." george says, his speech speeding up together with his hands. karl hands dream the strength potion and george the health potion. george looks into dream's eyes once more, gaze hard. "drink that."

dream contemplates on protesting but he complies, downing the potion in one gulp. george nods as soon as he lowers the bottle, popping the cork of the health potion open.

"this is gonna sting, but you seem like you can take it."

dream has half a second to question george's statement before his wound is doused with the potion, spreading through the crevices of the bite mark. his skin feels like it's on literal fire, the blood in the wound slightly bubbling as the potion reacts with it. he screws his eyes shut, throwing his head back as he refuses to let the pain get to him.

george looks at the boy, feeling the same slight tug in his gut from when he first met him. he frowns when dream only lets out a huff of breath, dream's uninjured arm coming up to cover his eyes. "dream?" he calls out.

the boy hums in reply after awhile, sounding slightly pained. george inhales, hand reaching out to pull his arm away from his eyes. green eyes blink repeatedly at him when he does, and it makes him feel something he can't quite figure out. "you wanna lie down?"

dream shakes his head, moving to stand up but as soon as he lifts himself from the seat, his weight collapses under him as sapnap and george immediately dart forward to catch him.

"tha'sn't good." he slurs.

"you need to rest. the potion in the wound will take a lot of your energy to fight the infection so—"

"but the zombies—"

"dream, literally shut the fuck up." sapnap says. dream blinks at him as his friend huffs angrily, expression softening after a few seconds. "don't worry, the sun should be rising soon. i'll protect everyone here while we wait. so go get some sleep or i will physically knock you out myself."

dream lets out a tired chuckle, vision already blurring with exhaustion. "sap..."

sapnap doesn't reply, helping dream up and leading him towards one of the other beds instead, laying him down gently.

—

george watches from the dining room of the farmhouse as sapnap closes the door gently behind him. the boy sighs tiredly before looking up at him, expression unreadable. "sorry for... making you have to treat him. he's dumb and shit but... thank you. we owe you."

"it's no problem. he—um—he saved my life first so, we're kinda even here." george chuckles, watching as the tension melts off sapnap's shoulders but he immediately tenses back up.

"will he be okay?"

"he'll be out for a while but he'll be okay. the potions should do their job. they'll be a bit feverish a few minutes from now and we'll have to take care of that but that's fine. we'll do everything so they recover well." george reassures him before gesturing at a chair in front of him.

"right." sapnap says, sitting down in front of him. karl and bad are sitting right next to them and the boy seems to notice, sitting up straight.

"uh—thank you again, by the way. for letting us stay here. you already probably know our names but i'll introduce us anyway. um, i'm sapnap, my reckless friend sleeping in the room is dream, and we're a pair of adventurers from the village beyond the forest where the river flows. we found your village just as soon as we got out, dream realized there was a zombie siege going on and we really just... moved before we realized it." sapnap finishes, fidgeting with his fingers as they listen to him.

bad immediately smiles, eyes still puffy from sobbing earlier but it doesn't make his smile any less genuine. "hello sapnap, i'm bad!"

"i'm karl!" the other boy adds. "our other friends in the room with yours are skeppy and quackity."

sapnap smiles back, relaxing into the chair. "hi."

"thank you for finding quackity earlier too, by the way." george says after a while and sapnap smiles at him.

they continues talking for a bit about themselves, about the pair's adventure, about the village, tensing up ever now and then when they hear the faint groans of zombies outside. later, they hear the pained whimpers of their friends as soon as the sky started to brighten up, a sign that they had to tend to them once more as the morning dawns on them.

—

dream wakes up to birds chirping outside, sunlight streaming through the glass windows. he blinks the heavy feeling of sleep away from his eyes, taking his arms out from under the blanket placed over him. his eyes catch the bandage wrapped over his wound—it's a little messy, he notes but it weirdly makes him smile. the cloth of his hoodie was cut off when they cleaned up the wound but dream can see the small amount of blood that has seeped through and dried at the edges of it.

he slowly sits up when he hears a shriek and a sharp pull on his stomach, making him jump out of the bed and run to the main area of the house with wide eyes and harsh breaths. his vision swims for a moment due to his sudden fast movements but he blinks away the black spots in his eyes, hands gripping onto the door frame for balance.

sapnap and george blink back at him, the other two—karl and bad, he thinks?—scold them for being loud and waking dream up. they laugh sheepishly as dream swallows and sighs, a hand coming up to rub at his face as his heart calms down.

"morning dream, how are you feeling?" sapnap asks him.

"like my body decided to give me a mini heart attack." dream replies before yawning. "what happened?"

"oh nothing, just gave george a little scare." his friend smiles.

dream hums before he realizes that this was the first time they were properly interacting, making him stand up straight. "uh—"

"it's okay, dream. don't worry. sapnap already explained where you guys came from and stuff. plus, i think there's some people waiting in the village for you." bad cuts him off gently with a smile. "you're quite the heroic personality, aren't you?"

dream huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. "nah. just reckless and impulsive is all."

"want food?" karl asks. dream nods and karl pats the empty seat next to him, already putting food on a plate for him.

"what did you tell them, sap?" dream decides to ask, frowning when sapnap wears a mischievous smile. "sapnap."

"nothing much, just the basics. i'm sapnap, you're dream, adventurers."

"he also said you're kinda dumb but that's okay because you're—"

"karl, i told you that's confidential!" sapnap shrieks the group laughing while dream smiles, glad that the younger is getting along with these people.

"dream." george finally speaks, making the said boy whip his head to the side to look at him. and if dream wasn't so focused on looking at his eyes as he tried to look for the reason why they looked so _familiar_ , he would also notice that the boy was slightly fidgeting under his attention. "would you like a tour of the village?"

dream tilts his head, smiles, and then nods. "that would be lovely, george."

"great." george exhales as he smiles back. "i'll wait outside."

and with that he walks outside while everyone else going back to what they were doing, bad asking dream about random things as karl and sapnap bicker in the background.

—

"hey." dream says, walking down the path and towards where george was waiting. warm brown eyes flit up to his face before a small smile finds its way onto his lips.

"hi." george greets back, shifting his weight. "shall we?"

they walk down the cobbled path from the farmhouse towards the village center. it's quiet, not uncomfortably so but george breaks the silence anyway with a question.

"how are you feeling?"

dream hums. "okay, i think."

"your wound?"

dream raises his arm up, frowning when he sees that the blood is starting to seep through the layers of the bandage. "it's... okay. i don't feel anything—"

"it's still bleeding." george points out, taking a closer look on his arm. "when we get to the brewery, i'll ask my dad to dress that up better."

"you don't have to."

"i want to." george sighs. "i think you forgot that you still did save my life last night."

dream frowns. "you did too." he says but george just smiles.

"it's okay, dream, it's something i'd still like to do regardless. my dad's probably going to scold the hell out of me when we get there but if i tell him you saved me, i think we'll be fine."

that makes dream laugh a bit, shaking his head. the silence returns as dream looks around, the morning sun shining over them.

"what happened while i was knocked out?" dream asks, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

"not much. sapnap was very mad at you, though. he told us a lot about you two too. luckily, morning came faster than we thought, the zombies started burning up and we had to help out with cleaning a bit. everyone's safe, not a lot of people were injured."

dream hums. "i take it sapnap's already been out and about?"

"oh, yeah. he had a blast."

"pain in the ass?"

george makes a face that makes dream wheeze out a laugh, a hand coming up to cover his mouth. george giggles a bit but sighs.

"he, quackity, and karl never should've met. it's just been chaos since and you guys have been here for barely half a day."

"sorry i wasn't awake to shut him up."

"no, it's fine." george bites back a smile. "sapnap was bullying you in your sleep."

dream whips his head to look at george with a frown. "what—"

"that's him, phil!" they hear a voice accompanied with footsteps rapidly approaching them and dream watches as the same kids he saved last night, together with their... dad, he assumes, run towards them.

"you!" the blond points at him. dream blinks at him, pointing at himself, a look of confusion and surprise on his face.

"tommy, quiet." the man tells the kid—tommy—off before looking at the two of them. "good morning, george."

"hello, phil." george greets back.

phil looks at dream with a smile. "thank you for saving these idiots last night. i really wouldn't have known what i'd do if they got hurt."

dream waves a hand. "no worries! i'm just glad they're safe."

"so, what's your name, big man?" the blond kid pipes up, crossing his arms against his chest.

"uh... dream." dream smiles at tommy. the boy hums for a bit before smiling brightly.

"alright, dream. what do you say i take you away from that loser beside you and have some fun, yeah?"

"shut the hell up, tommy. you literally got him injured, you nimrod." george scoffs, crossing his arms. dream gapes at him before laughing, shaking his head because phil looked distraught about the mention of his wound.

"it's okay! uh, maybe another time, tommy. this guy promised to patch me up." dream says, looking up at phil who seemed like there was something he had to say.

"do you plan on staying in the village, dream?" phil asks, making dream pause for minute.

"i... haven't—no, i don't know yet. we'll stay for a few days maybe, but me and my friend haven't talked about it. we probably won't be around for, like, a really long time though. maybe a week or two." dream tries to explain, stumbling over his words. phil smiles and nods, understanding.

"that's good to know. you should rest up before you head back out. if you need anything, you can find us at the bakery—george will probably show you."

"thank you for saving us, mister dream." the other boy, the one with the dark hair, says with bright eyes and a shy smile. "sorry tommy was being very dumb, we didn't mean to get you injured." he adds while tommy squawks indignantly beside him, eyes wide at his friend.

"tubbo, you're supposed to be on my side!"

"you're welcome, tubbo." dream laughs. phil shoos his children away afterwards, saying a goodbye and asking him to drop by the bakery later. he nods and they continue to walk through the village.

he gets introduced to the rest of the village folk, some recognizing him as someone who saved them or helped them out, offering him stuff and whatnot. he shakes his head though, saying he doesn't need anything in return, just a place for him and sapnap to stay in.

"you could stay at our house." george pipes up after a while.

"the farm house?"

george shakes his head. "no, i meant my actual house. my dad sleeps at the brewery and there's another spare room in the house too that used to be a place for patients. so... two rooms. you guys could stay there."

"will... that be okay with you? like actually. you know you don't have to do this at all, even if i saved your life or whatever. you're not obligated to—"

"jeez, dream, shut up." george laughs. "no, it's fine. i wouldn't have offered it if i didn't want to anyway. besides, you two could be funny sometimes. i wouldn't mind your company."

dream raises an eyebrow. "sometimes?"

"yeah, but sapnap said you're unfunny like, half of your existence so i don't know—" dream groans while george cuts himself off with a giggle, eyes scrunching up at the corners.

"sapnap's an idiot."

they finally reach the brewery and dream hesitantly enters after george. there's a man behind a counter who dream assumes is george's dad, based on the disappointed expression on his face.

"hi dad."

"george."

"this is dream."

"so i've heard."

"dad—"

"hello dream, how are you this fine morning?" george's dad suddenly asks, his expression morphing from disappointment to a pleasant smile which catches dream off-guard.

"uh—" he clears his throat. "um, good. i'm good, sir—"

"sorry if my son was in any way an inconvenience, i did tell him to do something _but he didn't listen_."

george rolls his eyes, walking forward to the counter. "we can talk about that later, dad. i need your help fixing up his wound."

"wound?" the man looks concerned now and dream internally sighs.

george gesture for him to come closer and dream obliges. once he was near enough, george grabs his wounded arm, placing it on the counter to show his father. "wound. for the record, he got it from saving tommy and tubbo, not me."

"that doesn't make it any better for you, george." his dad replies sternly, moving away from the counter to grab the necessary items. "you still could've gotten him or yourself hurt."

dream watches as george frowns, crossing his arms on the counter and laying his head on it. "but i didn't." the boy says softly, sulking.

the conversation stops there, george's father coming back with a small dagger, bottles of various liquids, and a fresh bandage.

"did you do this, george?"

"uh... yeah."

"i need to teach you better dressing." is all he says before he takes the dagger to carefully cut through the bloodied fabric, peeling it away gently. he inspects the wound after, humming as he carefully wipes away the blood.

"not even a flinch, dream?" he asks, making dream chuckle.

"i... yeah. used to it, i guess."

"used to it?" it was george who asks the question, lifting his head up to look up at him.

"yeah. i was a pretty reckless kid. though, i started trying... not to let the pain get to me? i mean, i didn't really want to stop being reckless and stuff but ever since my grandma told me about, um, soulmates... i decided to not let stuff affect me."

that makes george's dad laugh, george looking at him bewildered. dream just laughs sheepishly, rubbing the back of his nape with his free hand.

"what? why—?" george shakes his head lightly, still looking at him with incredulity.

dream rambles, slightly stumbling over his words as he explains himself. "well, again, i'm pretty reckless. i don't want to give my soulmate a mini heart attack every 5 minutes, they'll hate me and their existence."

george's dad smiles at him. "you're very considerate, dream. your soulmate's lucky."

"are they?" dream chuckles. "well, i hope i didn't make it too hard on them."

the man finishes up on dressing his arm, pinning it down neatly so it doesn't unravel as he moves. "there you go."

"thank you."

"george—"

"talk later dad, gotta get dream to the bakery, bye!" george says, pulling dream's arm as he rushes outside the door.

they stay silent for a few beats before dream huffs out a laugh. "george?"

"yes?" the boy looks up at him innocently as if he hadn't just ignored his father's wrath and it pulls out a hearty laugh from dream.

"is that okay? won't he be angrier?"

"if you're there, he probably won't be. he doesn't like to show his 'disappointed in my idiot son' side to people." george says, making quotation marks with his fingers as he spoke.

"you are an idiot." dream says jokingly and george rolls his eyes at him. he hums before continuing. "this is nice."

"what is?"

he shrugs. "just...you barely know who i am, yet here we are joking around as if we knew each other for a while now."

george hums, smiling. "it's actually kinda weird. i'm not usually this quick to befriend people. for all i know, you're here to rob the village—"

dream gapes in disbelief. "i'm not gonna rob the village—"

"but you could." george giggles before sighing. "anyway, what i'm saying is, i'm not that quick to trust people but... i trust you."

dream tilts his head, curious. "why?"

it's george's turn to shrug. "dunno. it just happened. seemed like the right choice to make."

dream doesn't reply but smiles. george smiles back and they continue their walk in a comfortable silence, towards the bakery where phil was waiting for them before they continued touring the village.

—

"here we are, my humble abode." george says, stepping aside to let dream and sapnap in. after the tour, dream immediately talked to sapnap about their plans as well as george's offer and the younger agrees without a thought, a bright smile on his face.

the two adventurers stand by the doorway, looking around the house as george walks further in, pointing where the rooms are. george lights up some of the torches on the walls, bathing the house in a soft orange light.

"george, you're a great person." sapnap says, walking in and peering into one of the rooms. "i call dibs, dream!"

dream shakes his head as he crouches to take his boots off, george laughing at sapnap's comment. once his shoes were off, he carries them in one hand as he peers into the room sapnap was in.

"is this the one you said was haunted, george?" dream comments, tone so serious george wouldn't have caught on that it was a joke if he hadn't seen the mischievous grin on his face.

"what—" sapnap's eyes widen as george cuts him off.

"oh, yeah. this was the patient's ward. lots of people died here."

sapnap's face pales. "okay, maybe, hold on. dream—"

"i'm going to the other room. have fun, sap." dream turns around, waving a hand as he walks away, barely holding his laughter as he hears sapnap scramble away from the room.

" _dream_!" he screeches before jumping onto dream. the older boy wheezes out a laugh, sutmbling slightly, making george laugh as well while sapnap glares at his friend. "you go in that room."

"it was a joke, sapnap."

"nuh-uh, i don't believe you."

dream chuckles, turning around to pat sapnap's head before pulling away to walk into the room. "whatever. fine, at least if i get possessed, you're the first person on my hit list."

"what the hell did i _do_!"

they tease sapnap a bit more before they decided to finally settle down properly, setting their bundles down in their respective rooms and such. sapnap heads to bed while dream stays up for a bit, organising his stuff and cleaning his sword.

"you're not sleeping?" george asks, sitting down in front of dream.

"in a few, maybe. how about you?"

"mh. don't feel like it yet."

dream nods, continuing to gently wipe away the stains on the diamond blade, the torch on the wall illuminating the room. it flickers slightly, momentarily changing the shadows on their faces and the slight twinkle of light on their eyes.

"what do you plan to do after today?" george asks quietly and dream hums in thought.

"sap and i are probably going to take on requests and stuff from the villagers. collecting resources, checking things out. protection services, maybe."

george hums. "you're really good with a sword, huh."

"so i've been told." dream smiles at george, eyes glancing at him for a second before looking back down on the sword. "been training for all my life. guess it paid off."

george stays quiet for a moment, moving his arms onto to the table to rest his head on, still looking up at dream. he opens his mouth to say something, hesitating momentarily but he shakes it away, asking anyway. "tell me stories?"

dream looks up at him for longer this time, looking caught-off guard but it soon melts into the same soft smile. "sure."

and so dream tells him stories of his childhood. he tells them about the times he got lost in the forest once, not realizing how much time had passed until a miner finds him with much relief. he tells him about the time sapnap almost drowned trying to chase a huge salmon, a dare that had occured between them and their friends. he told them about the times he felt lonely with both his parents away on an adventure, staring at the stars as he wonders when they'll come back and when it'll be his turn.

he looks up to look at george after a few stories, blinking and chuckling quietly to himself when he finds that the boy has fallen asleep listening to him. he sets down his sword gently before standing up, walking around the table to nudge george awake. "george?"

the other boy gives a sleepy hum, eyes remaining to be closed.

"come on, let's get you to bed."

dream waits for another response but he doesn't get one. he places a hand on george's shoulder, shaking him gently. george finally stirs, sitting up slowly and blinking up at dream. "oh." is all he says when he realizes he'd fallen asleep.

"it's alright. go sleep properly, yeah?" dream says, stepping back when george nods, stretching before standing up. he walks towards his room, looking at dream by the doorway with a soft smile.

"goodnight, dream."

"goodnight, george."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i also wanted to thank u guys for 300 kudos???? wtf ??? yay :DD
> 
> also george released a video where they coded a zombie apocalypse and i just– pog . zombie siege. boom. i called it /j
> 
> anyway another thing, dunno how long the last part will be but i hope i wont have to cut it in half again haha :DD 
> 
> thank you for reading !! i appreciate all your kudos and comments :)) they make my day hehe


	4. iv.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "isn't it scary?" 
> 
> "it is, i guess. but i'll be fine." 
> 
> "how are you so sure?" 
> 
> dream raises an eyebrow as he glances at george, smiling softly at the obvious tone of concern on his voice. "cause i'm good like that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! happy new year!
> 
> before we start i want to confess that this became a filler chapter and now the fic will have 5 chapters. 
> 
> i also want to reiterate, quackity's relationships are **_platonic_** since he doesn't like being shipped with his friends!
> 
> anyway, i don't like this chapter that much, i'll explain at end notes, but i hope you guys still enjoy reading it!

george wakes up to the smell of freshly baked bread.

he stumbles out of his room to find sapnap cutting up some vegetables on the table as dream stands behind him on the counter, kneading some more dough for another loaf of bread. sapnap notices him and smiles, waving with his free hand.

"good morning, george."

and with that, dream turns around too, with flour dusting his cheeks and shirt. he smiles as well, raising a hand. "good morning, george. good sleep?"

george blinks away the remainder of the sleep in his eyes before putting on a confused expression. "good morning, i did. what are you guys doing?"

"making breakfast and lunch? i hope you don't mind that we used your furnaces and stuff. we didn't take any of your food or anything, it's all from us, but we're making this for all three of us." dream rambles before laughing nervously, sapnap snickering in front of him.

"yeah, no. i don't mind if you take anything, really. it's just...we could've just gotten some bread from the bakery and stuff from the market?" george explains, sitting down in front of sapnap. the latter continues to chop up the food as dream hums.

"well, we decided it would've been nice if we made something for you. like, something we made ourselves. y'know, for housing us."

george simply blinks at dream before breaks into a smile, shaking his head.

"that's... really sweet of you. you didn't have to."

"we wanted to." sapnap leans in, his voice dropping to a loud whisper. "but did you know dream was about to oversleep if it wasn't for me?" he adds, biting his lower lip to keep from smiling when dream chokes on his own spit, coughing slightly.

" _sapnap_."

"well, thank you for waking up early then." george says giggling, looking up at dream who smiles sheepishly back before turning around to knead the bread some more. george watches them from where he's sitting, leaning back slightly as warmth fills his chest. "this is...i don't think i've seen something like this in a while?"

"like what?" sapnap asks, not looking up from the vegetables.

"like—" george gestures towards them. "this. i don't know. i don't know how to word it. but it feels...warm. like there's finally life in the house, or something."

dream pauses to look over his shoulder, a smile still stuck on his face. it gets wider though, before he faces the dough again. "well, we're glad. we could do this every other morning, if you want. you could join us in cooking stuff."

"that would be nice."

afterwards, george asks sapnap if he could help out with the vegetables, which the younger nodded to as he hands him a few carrots. he stands up to grab a knife from the counter where dream was at, laughing at the amount of flour that has accumulated on the boy's face. dream pouts, shooing him away as he carefully places the dough on the surface of the wooden peel, grabbing the handle to slide the dough into the furnace. george sits back down in front of sapnap, peeling the carrots as sapnap moves onto cutting the meat.

"this is for lunch later, by the way. it's stew, is that alright with you?" sapnap asks and george nods.

"of course it's alright. it's stew, you could never go wrong with stew."

"he's not wrong." dream says as he carefully cuts the loaf into slices. "sapnap, can you make thin slices of meat for the bread, please?"

"gotcha. here's the veggies, by the way."

"we add that later to steam. i'll go start boiling the water." dream adds after placing the bread slices on the table in front of george, grabbing the clean bucket from the floor for the water.

"you want help there?" george asks.

"if you want to, sure." dream replies, filling the bucket up from the cauldron. george stands up to light the fire under the clay stove as dream fills up a matching clay pot with the water. the fire would've almost singed george's skin if it hadn't been for dream's fast reflexes pulling his arm up and away from it.

"careful." dream mutters as he lets go of george's arm, grabbing the pot to put it over the fire. george steps back, laughing lightly with an eyebrow raised. sapnap comes up to them with bowls of raw meat and vegetables for the stew.

they start preparing everything needed for the dish, broiling, sautéing, and letting everything simmer until optimal. while they wait, they started eating the freshly baked loaves of bread dream made, as well as frying the thin strips of meat sapnap had prepared.

"so, what's the agenda for today boys?" george asks before biting down on the bread, making a small noise of surprise. "this is good."

"dream bakes good bread." sapnap muses, munching on his own bread. dream chuckles, shrugging and smiling.

"thanks, i try." he clears his throat, looking at george. "the agenda today? i'm not actually sure. i initially wanted to go around and ask the village folk but apparently sapnap's got plans already."

"i forgot, okay?" sapnap pouts, looking at george. he leans forward slightly wo dramatically whisper, "dream's clingy sometimes."

"i am _not_ —"

"but i agreed to meet up with quackity and karl at the farm today. we have...an _experiment_ to try." sapnap ignores dream's indignant squawk, only giggling in response.

"that sounds kinda shady." george points out to which dream nods to.

"i heard you guys were chaotic together." dream chides beside him, nudging the younger boy with his shoulder. "don't go causing trouble, sapnap."

"dream, when have i ever caused trouble?" sapnap smirks but it immediately falls when dream raises his eyebrow and opens his mouth. "wait—don't answer that."

"well, there was the time where you tried to pull a prank on techno—"

" _dream!_ shut up, i told you not to answer that!"

dream chuckles as sapnap pouts again. he catches george simply smiling at them and he smiles too, directing his attention back to his food. george hums, propping up an elbow on the table and resting his cheek on the palm of his hand.

"now that i think about it," he starts, looking at sapnap. "you click really well with them."

"yeah, i thought so too." dream looks at his friend with a raised eyebrow. "mind telling me how that happened?"

"see, clingy." sapnap points with his thumb while talking and yelps when dream pinches his bicep in revenge, his head whipping to the side to look at dream with wide eyes. " _dream_! what's _wrong_ with you?!"

"what?" dream tries to hide the smile on his lips. "i just wanted to know how a whiny baby like you got new friends."

"that is actually very rude, dream. it just so happened that that whiny baby is _your_ bestest friend. anyway, i dunno. it just kinda happened."

"must be fate." george jokes but when sapnap's eyes widen, he leans back slightly. "w-what?"

"you really think so?"

george shrugs. "dunno, maybe." he chuckles a bit and continues to eat. "so, now that your partner's preoccupied, what are your plans, dream?"

dream hums, staring at the ceiling and chewing on his food. "i don't actually know. i mean i do, but i wouldn't know where to start."

"i can help you." george says, smiling. "it'll be easier with someone who knows the village folk, don't you think?"

dream grins at him. "you sure? you aren't busy or anything?"

"nah." george waves his hand. "it's fine, i swear."

"if you say so."

—

"we'll meet up for lunch later, okay?" dream says, sheathing his sword into the scabbard tied around his waist. he looks up when sapnap hums, not carrying any of his stuff. "you're not bringing anything with you?"

"not today. maybe tomorrow." sapnap explains, picking at his nails. dream raises an eyebrow at him but shrugs.

"alright. see you, sap."

the younger grins, facing george. "take care of that idiot for me, will you george?"

" _sapnap_."

"i will." george giggles, making dream roll his eyes at him. "don't cause trouble at the farm, okay?"

"yeah, yeah. bye!" he turns around, waving his hands goodbye as he walks towards the farm. dream exhales a fond laugh, shaking his head.

"right, where do we go, georgie?" he says, turning to face george who raises an eyebrow at him.

"georgie?"

" _georgiepoo_."

"what the hell is wrong with you?" george laughs, making dream laugh too. "anyway, are you fine with visiting the market? lots of people should be there during this time, maybe you could snag a few requests there."

"sounds good."

they start walking, george looking up to the sun while dream looks around, starting to memorize where everything is. he spots tommy and tubbo again by the well, accompanied by a woman who seems to be scolding the blond.

"hey look, it's dream!" tubbo yells, making them look up at him. "hello, mister dream!"

dream waves as george turns his head to look over to where tubbo was. he gasps, waving his hands as well when the woman looks up. "niki!"

"hello, george!"

george tugs at dream's sleeve, nodding his head towards their direction. "come, i'll introduce you to niki."

"are they all siblings?" dream whispers as they walk towards the well. "like, are they the children of... phil, was it?"

"kind of. i'll explain later." george whispers back, smiling. "niki! i'm glad you're doing better."

"thank you! your dad's potion helped out a lot." she says, eyes crinkling as she lets out a laugh.

"this is dream, by the way."

niki looks up at dream, the same kind smile on her face. "hello dream, i've heard a lot about you from these two. thank you for protecting them."

"that's no problem." dream grins.

"when will you come with us instead of george, big man?" tommy pipes up and dream holds back a laugh when he sees george roll his eyes.

"why do you keep trying to steal him away, tommy?"

"cause you're lame."

"tommy!" niki scolds, glaring at the younger boy who simply crosses his arms.

"why'd you save this kid again, dream?" george jokes with a straight face, mimicking tommy's crossed arms.

"do they always banter like this?" dream asks niki, who laughs and nods.

dream laughs too, but startles slightly when tommy shrieks, expression screwing up into one of indignance while tubbo laughs at his friend, george looking smug as tommy continues to ramble in defense.

"we'll be going now." george stick his tongue out at tommy before once again pulling at dream's sleeve. "glad you're doing good niki! hope you don't get sick again."

they wave farewell, tommy flipping george off as they walk away. dream laughs again, nudging george. "stop bullying the children, george."

"he deserves it."

the loud chattering and bustling crowd of the marketplace comes into their view, vendors yelling out prices as they try to attract customers, some of the village folk giggling as they gossip with each other. it makes dream smile, reminded of the marketplace at his own village. he ignored the small tinge of pain coming from missing his village, letting out a sigh instead.

some of the people recognize george, greeting him with a wide smile. some recognize dream too, as their savior or as the new guy in town. he bows back to them in greeting, surprising them and making them laugh slightly while they shake their heads.

"please, you're someone we owe. don't bow your head to us."

george grabs dream's arm as they navigate through the stalls, saying that it was so dream didn't get lost when the latter raised an eyebrow at him. dream stops in front of a stall though, pulling george back a bit.

"what?" he asks as he watched dream scan the items on display. "you want to get something?"

"just... maybe." he picks up a brooch, holding it between his fingers and examining it. the sunlight bounces off the gold and he hums, putting it back down. "i'll keep that in mind."

george raises an eyebrow at him but shrugs, looking away and his eyes catch the head lumberjack weaving through the crowd as he does. he pulls dream once more, telling him that the man might have something for him.

"hello, sir!" george greets once they reach the man. he turned around to look at the both of them, face morphing into something kind as he recognizes them.

"oh, yes, george." his gruff voice speaks. "can i help you today?"

"actually, we're here to ask _you_ that question. you see, my friend dream here is looking around for stuff he could do for the village while they're staying. do you think there's something he can do? like an errand or something?" george explains, hands animated as he spoke.

the lumberjack hums, a hand coming up to scratch at his stubble. he looks down at dream—probably sizing him up, before speaking up again.

"you were that kid that came out to help the village right? i saw you wielding that sword of yours, you seem like you know your stuff."

"you could say that." dream nods.

"well then, i was thinking about what you could do when i remembered that there's a trip to the forest later today. we could use some help killing off the monsters that hide in the shadows." he shifts his weight to his other foot, resting his hands on his hips before adding, "if you do a good job, i'll recommend you to the miners. they could use a scout."

dream smiles, nodding his head faster. "absolutely, sure." he looks to the side to see george smiling softly at him, catching his gaze and smiling even bigger.

"alright. meet us at the edge of the village after noon. we'll be waiting there."

dream bows when the lumberjack nods, waving goodbye and walking away. "that was easier than i thought."

"must be your charming personality." george says, laughing. dream rolls his eyes.

"oh, come on."

"you wanna look around the market for now? we still have quite some time before lunch so... you know. if you don't want to, we could head to the farm and meet up with sapnap and the others." george reaches up to fix his bangs away from his eyes, blinking rapidly when one of the strands pokes his eye. dream tries not to laugh as he watches, shaking his head.

"we can look around." he says after clearing his throat, crossing his arms and looking around, eyes narrowing. "i could keep my eye out for some things i could try to trade for."

"like?" george asks as they start to walk around.

"i dunno. relics, some resources, stuff i could take back home as a memory of this village. things like that." dream grins.

they weave through the crowds, apologizing to those they accidentally bump into. dream scans the stalls for little trinkets such as the brooch earlier, george pulling him to some shops that sold questionable things that confused dream. they laugh and talk while they hop from stall to another, making up absurd descriptions for the mundane items in front of them.

"have you heard about the underworld?" george asks, as dream picks up a golden nugget.

"the nether?"

"yeah, the nether. have you gone in it?"

"no." dream places the gold nugget back down. "i just started adventuring, my mom would give me an earful if i ever attempted to even _think_ about going into the nether right now."

"i thought you were _reckless_?" george teases and dream rolls his eyes.

"i'm reckless, but i don't have a death wish, george."

george hums, picking up the gold nugget again and lifting it up to let the sun reflect onto its shiny surface. "i guess that's fair."

"why'd you ask?"

"do you know about brewing?"

dream shrugs. "a little."

"most of the stuff we need for brewing actually comes from the nether. makes you wonder just how magical the place actually is, don't you think?"

"i think its terrifying, based on the things i've heard about it." dream replies as george takes a few more nuggets, pulling out an emerald piece from his pocket. "you're getting those?"

"yup, for ingredients."

dream looks at him, a thoughtful look on his face. "tell me about brewing."

george grins, eyes lighting up with passion as he tells dream everything he knows, throwing in rambles about trying to make new combinations and finding new ingredients. dream teases him lightly as they go, but he listens intently and smiles whenever george gasps, rambling further with stars in his eyes.

they end up walking back home as they chat when they realize that it's already noon, wondering if sapnap is already there waiting for them.

" _dream_! dream!" sapnap shouts when he sees them walking towards the house. they also see quackity and karl behind him, sporting the exact same excited looks on their faces. sapnap runs to dream, arms extended to grab the older by the shoulders.

"s-sap—?"

"dream! i've found my _soulmates_!"

dream's eyes widen, a look of disbelief on his face when he looks up at quackity and karl before looking back down at his friend, sapnap nodding vigorously. a grin finds its way onto dream's lips as his own hands come up, grabbing at sapnap's arms." _soulmates_? as in plural?"

"plural!" sapnap responds brightly, giggles escaping his lups as he speaks. "i've found them, dream!"

"w-wait, wait. h-how is that even possible? there's three of you?"

"three of us!"

dream huffs out a laugh, pulling sapnap in for a hug which the younger returns tightly. george, who was listening to their conversation, rushes to his own friends to interrogate them.

"sapnap's your _soulmate_?" he exclaims, eyes wide as quackity and karl giggle as well, a huge grin on his face.

" _ours_! it's actually insane!" quackity says, hands cupping his own cheeks as george laughs, a grin also adorning his face.

george raises his arms into the air, looking at them both with happiness. "congratulations, you guys! i'm so happy for you." he envelops them in a hug—it's something he rarely does, which shocks his friends but revels in the feeling anyway, hugging him back tightly with uncontrollable giggles bubbling in their chests.

sapnap pulls away from dream, still smiling as widely as he looks up at his friend.

"how did you guys find out? how does it all even work?" dream asks. sapnap opens his mouth before closing it again, glancing over his shoulder.

"i'll tell you while we eat?"

—

"so i get to the farm right? and i see quackity and karl laughing at something—i don't know what it was, i didn't ask—so i hid behind one of the hay bales by them. i just wanted to scare them both, since they didn't know i was there yet. when i jumped out of the hay bales, quackity—the absolute dumbass that he is—accidentally smacks karl in the face—"

"listen, i wouldn't have startled if quackity didn't literally deck me in the face—"

"why are you blaming _me_?! sapnap's clearly the one at fault here!"

dream and george chuckle as their friends banter with each other, quackity mocking karl as sapnap tries to break them apart to continue the story. quackity frowns, humphing childishly as he looks away, making karl laugh and apologize. sapnap rolls his eyes, shoveling another spoonful of the stew into his mouth as he waits for his soulmates to shut up.

"then what happened?" dream prompts, an easy grin on his face as sapnap hurriedly swallows his food to talk.

"since we know that we'll know if our soulmates are like, hurt and stuff, i felt that random tug in my gut y'know? and at the moment i thought that maybe it was just a coincidence, so i just shrugged and laughed at them." sapnap continues, karl and quackity finally calming down beside him. "they both start yelling at me and stuff—"

"actually, it was just quackity—"

"no it _wasn't_ —"

"literally shut the hell up, both of you." sapnap says, exasperated. he huffs when the other two giggle again at his short temper, facing dream and george again. "anyway, remember how i told you that we were conducting an experiment and stuff? it was actually us trying out quackity's concoctions—"

"oh, dear lord." george whispers beside dream.

"and i don't know, just fooling around. at the back of the farm house, they set up like a little roasting area—"

"quackity, i told you to _stop_ roasting random things!"

"you're not my mom, george!" quackity retorts, giggling. sapnap sighs, closing his eyes and burying his face in his hands. dream pats his head sympathetically as quackity banters with george this time.

"alright! come on, let's let sapnap tell the story. quackity, stop." karl laughs, quackity's shoulder lightly.

"no, no. you guys tell it. i'm tired." sapnap continues eating after that, making everyone at the table laugh again, shaking their heads.

"essentially, i made sapnap eat something, he chokes on it for some dumb reason, karl panics, i feel the soulmate tug in my own gut, i start to panic as well—y'know, it's very complicated. long story short, the three of us got hurt one way or another and we all felt that thing." quackity tries to summarize, getting another eye roll from sapnap.

"you suck at storytelling." sapnap comments, quackity sticking his tongue out as a retort. 

"so how does the entire...connection work?" george asks, crossing his arms on the table.

"basically, i'm connected to sapnap, sapnap is connected to quackity, and quackity is connected to me. we're like a closed circuit of signals." karl explains, shrugging.

"that is so interesting." dream leans back on his chair, another thoughtful look on his face. "i didn't know it could work like that."

"i know, right? we must've really trusted each other this much equally in out past lives for this to happen." sapnap adds, grinning again.

they continue to chat and banter as they finish up their food, the trio yelling over each other as dream laughs, george groaning at their antics. the older boy looks over to dream with a look that says ' _do you see what i had to deal with?_ ', which just makes dream laugh and wheeze harder.

eventually, they all had to part ways—dream to the lumberjacks, george to his dad, quackity to the riverside, and sapnap and karl back to the farm. they clean up their mess, making sure the fires are out and everything else is fixed before leaving.

"don't be dumb and get yourself hurt, dream!" sapnap yells as dream starts walking. the older boy turns around, flipping sapnap off as the younger cackles. they wave at each other goodbye, dream turning back around and falling in step with george who hands him his shield.

"he's not wrong, you know." george says out of nowhere, not looking at dream.

"what?"

"don't be dumb." george grins, looking up at him. "but also, don't get hurt. it's dangerous out there, y'know?"

"speaking from experience?" dream teases, george rolling his eyes.

"and if i say yes?"

"ah, now see, _i_ should be the one warning you about how dangerous it is."

"okay, mister i-saved-your-life-therefore-i-know-better." george jokes. 

"oh, come on. i didn't say that." dream laughs.

"the brewery is this way. the lumberjacks are down that road." george points out after a brief moment of silence. dream tilts his head, a small smile on his face.

"let me walk you there."

"no, dream." george huffs a laugh. "you'll be late. you don't wanna leave them a bad impression now, do you?"

dream pouts, making george laugh even more. "go on, you big baby. sap and i will wait for you at home." george adds, reaching out to push dream towards the path.

"okay."

—

"hello! dream, was it?"

dream nods, bowing slightly as he faces the head lumberjack earlier. the man laughs, shaking his head. "good afternoon, sir."

"good afternoon." he pats dream on the back before gesturing at his crew standing behind him. "boys, this is dream. he'll be our bodyguard for tonight."

dream looks over to the crew—a group of men with bulked up arms from chopping down trees all day, stubble and beards on their chins, towering over him slightly. he grins, bowing his head slightly at them.

"you good with monsters, boy?"

"yes sir." dream replies confidently.

"good." one of them grunts out. "there'll be a lot of them."

"we set out in five minutes. get anything you might need in the shack over there. you can help us arrange the wood if you'd like, but you don't necessarily have to. your sole job is to look out for monsters, slay them, make sure no one gets hurt. not even _you._ got that?"

dream nods firmly, getting a grin from the man. "i like your confidence, kid. go and get yourself set." he adds before walking away, briefing his men with the resources they need to collect. dream walks to the shack, seeing an assortment of items.

he sees a bundle of food to the side, a couple spare axes, some rope, a few bottles of water, empty bundles, and other trinkets. he takes a bundle and stuffs it with a couple loaves of bread, some water, as well as some rope. he grabs some torches which he slides into his belt to hold it, taking some flint and steel from the shack as well. once he arranges everything, he grabs an axe in its holster as well, securing it along with his sword.

the head lumberjack sees him walking back, raising an eyebrow at the axe. "you know how to use that, boy?"

"more or less." dream glances down at the axe. "this wouldn't be my first time helping out lumberjacks, after all."

"that's reassuring." the man replies, readjusting his belt before looking back at dream. "let's go."

—

the tree branches sway as a wind blows past them, creating a cacophony of rustles and bird chirps as they pass the threshold of the forest. dream looks around as they walk, senses on high alert as the sun starts to set, bathing them in a warm orange glow. he listens to the rhythmic footsteps of the lumberjacks, the subtle sounds of shifting cloth and items, and the occasional murmur between them.

in the distance, he sees a humongous mushroom that has grown as high as the dark oak trees that surround it, bright red with white spots staring back at him. he squints at the space beneath the cap of the shroom, a shadow moving away from the sun. the head lumberjack notices him look a bit closer, but doesn't say anything.

it isn't until a few minutes later when the head finally stops, turning around to address his men.

"this is where we start. you know standard protocols, make sure you're back in this clearing before the sun completely sets. everyone has a list of the things to forage, if you cannot obtain all of them before sundown, it's okay." he looks over at dream. "dream, if you can, please scout the area."

"on it." he unsheathes his sword, light glinting off of it as he walks further straight, the men getting to work behind him.

it's incredibly quiet and eerie as he walks alone, the grass beneath his feet crunching with every step. he moves slowly and cautiously, making sure he doesn't miss a sound. he doesn't know how far back he should be scouting, so he stops in a spot before closing his eyes, straining his ears.

when he doesn't hear anything else, he starts walking back. the clearing comes to view and he sees the men start to disperse, as well as hear the grunts and the thumps of axes cutting through bark.

"sir—" he starts when he hears the familiar hiss of a spider, his body acting on reflex to raise his sword as he tries to pinpoint where the sound came from. the man he called turns around to look at him, about to ask what the problem was when dream starts running towards one of the men.

"dream—?!" is all he could say before dream swings, whacking the spider's body and startling the lumberjack working near it.

"please move aside!" dream exclaims as he grips his sword tighter, swinging the blade across the spider's front. he clicks his tongue when the spider prepares to lunge at him, positioning his sword to strike until he could pierce through its head. green goo splatters over his cheeks and clothes, a pained hiss coming from the spider as it thrashes against his sword. the men watch him as he pulls the blade out and ends the monster, moving fast as he sees another rushing behind it.

he slays the second spider as well, looking back at the group as he wipes the goo off his cheek using his sleeve. he gives them a small smile before walking towards the spider carcass, digging the tip of his blade into the monster's eyesockets and severing the nerves of the eyes, pulling it out and collecting them in his palm.

"i heard we're also collecting spider eyes?" he says, showing them the mushy red pile in his hands.

—

the trip continues on like that, dream rushing to slay monsters without a second thought, skillfully collecting spider eyes in an empty glass bottle. the lumberjacks smile whenever they see him run around, slaying stray monsters left and right. by the end of the day, dream is covered in goo and grime and dirt, an axe in hand as he falls a small tree on their way back. he helps them tie the wood up and hoist some bundles up over shoulders, some being dragged across the ground.

"you did good. we didn't expect you to be that skilled, though. i'll make sure to let the miners know." the head lumberjack laughs as dream huffs out a bashful breath. "you should stop by the river to wash up, though. you wouldn't want to walk back in the village looking and _smelling_ like that."

"yes sir." dream replies, rubbing a hand on his nape. they walk back to the shack in comfortable silence, dream depositing his reseources onto the table before bowing and saying his farewells, making a beeline towards the river right after.

some villagers pass by him as he walks, wide eyes looking at him with concern. he shakes his head, waving and speeding up his pace so he doesn't horrify and disgust more people.

once he sees the flowing water, the sun has almost completely set, the lamps scattered around the village illuminating the gravel paths. he also spots a few silhouettes of people by the riverbank, hearing faint laughter as he steers clear of them. he crouches down by the water once he finds an isolated spot, looking at his reflection and grimacing at himself. quickly, he sits down cross-legged and scoops up some water into his hands, wiping the gunk off his face and feeling infinitely better as a breeze cools the water on his skin.

he spends a few more minutes getting the dirt off his body, wagging his hands dry before simply staring at the water.

he doesn't know how long he stays sitting there, lost in his thoughts before he gets pulled out of his trance.

"dream?"

he turns around to see george, a worried look on his face as he walks closer to dream. "are you okay?"

dream nods his head. "yeah, i'm fine. why are you here?"

"i went over to the lumberjacks to check where you were since you still weren't home and he told me that you've left for the river 2 hours ago. so i came here." george frowns. "it's late, dream."

"oh."

"you sure you're okay?"

dream sighs, looking back in front of him. "i am, i promise. i didn't know so much time has passed though."

he hears george shuffle his feet before walking forward to sit down on the grass next to him, crossing his legs with his knee touching dream's. george hums, dipping his fingers on the water and creating ripples that reflected the moonlight on its peaks. 

"what were you thinking about?" 

dream lifts his shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. "not sure. probably was about the trip or... soulmates." 

george pauses. "what about soulmates?" 

"have you met yours yet, george?" 

the other boy shakes his head. "no. i barely get any strong signals from them aside from the first ever time they gave me a scare." he giggles fondly, looking back at the memory. "aside from those, not much." 

"do you think you'll meet them?" dream continues. 

george hums thoughtfully, sighing after. "yeah, maybe. i don't know. i don't even know how i'll know." dream makes a noise in agreement, hands moving to pick at the grass beneath them. 

"you'll meet them, dream. i'm sure you will. don't think about it too much, okay? we'll meet our soulmates." george tries to reassure the younger, who nods slowly. he clears his throat, looking to change the subject. 

"how was the trip?"

"it was alright. surprisingly, i didn't mess up." dream finally laughs a bit. "got really messy though." he adds, pulling at the front of his shirt.

"you can wash that tomorrow. i'll lend you some clothes for now." george says, lifting his hand and sprinkling water at dream, making the other flinch.

"hey, wha—" dream cuts himself off, dipping his own hand into the water and getting back at george. the older boy giggles as he raises his arms to protect his face from the water, lowering it once dream simply huffs, tilting his head. "thank you, george."

"sure."

"they also said they'd recommend me to the miners, so i might do some scouting business for tomorrow." dream adds, throwing the grass blades he'd collected into the river, watching them float down the current.

"scouting..." george trails off, another frown pulling at his lips. "are you going alone?" 

"probably. if sapnap decides to tag along, maybe not." 

"isn't it scary?" 

"it is, i guess. but i'll be fine." 

"how are you so sure?" 

dream raises an eyebrow as he glances at george, smiling softly at the obvious tone of concern on his voice. "cause i'm good like that." 

george rolls his eyes. "whatever. you better stay safe." 

dream smirks. "are you worried about me?" 

george doesn't reply. dream hums, positioning his hands behind him to support his weight as he leans back. "i'll take that as a yes." 

"of course i'm worried. you're a friend to me now." george says softly. "but also..." 

"also?" 

george opens his mouth to continue but closes it again, shaking his head. "nothing. just—don't get hurt?" a request, not an advice, dream notes. 

"okay." he smiles. 

they sit in silence for a moment, simply listening to the gentle current of the river, the faint rustle of leaves, the muffled sounds of the village behind them. they watch as the moon continues to rise, stars blinking at them brightly. it feels tranquil, as if the world is slowly starting to fade out behind them. george pulls his legs up to hug them against his chest, nestling his chin on his knees. dream watches from the corner of his eye.

"do you want to go home yet?" george asks. dream shakes his head.

"a few more minutes. you can go ahead if you want to, though."

george makes a small noise. "i'll stay."

"okay."

a warm feeling starts to grow somewhere in the middle of dream's chest, familiar yet at the same time not, welcome and serene. he closes his eyes as he focuses on it, trying to figure out what made the feeling so familiar and nice and...

"are you cold?" he asks after a while.

"nah." george replies. 

"really?"

"are you?"

"no. i feel... warm." dream confesses and george gives him a smile.

"me too." he clears his throat. "i feel warm too. and... and _safe."_ george whispers, almost inaudible. dream looks at him, green eyes sparkling with the reflection of the moonlight.

 _safe._ dream smiles to himself, throwing his head back gently to look at the stars.

 _it felt safe_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so i had to rewrite this chapter at least 6 times which is why it's so delayed, and even now i still don't like how it became a filler chapter, still don't like how everything came out but maybe that's just my perfectionist side talking
> 
> but hey!! thank you for 400+ kudos wtf ?? u guys r so cool thank you also sapnap quackity karl soulmates pog? :DD
> 
> i was also incredibly emotionally spent during the holidays which just gave me a minor writer's block too : (
> 
> ANYWAY DREAMNAP MET UP WTF ?? FOR A MONTH OR SO AS WELL OH MY GOSH my trust issues are still kind of refusing to believe even after sap's stream
> 
> twt: [@ranboolite](https://twitter.com/ranboolite?s=09)

**Author's Note:**

> hey :>
> 
> if u guys wanna say hi or talk, maybe even give me requests of things u want me to write, go to my twitter! it's [@ranboolite](https://twitter.com/ranboolite?s=09)
> 
> see u guys in the next one !


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